Beware, Buckeye fans. The following exercise isn’t for the faint of heart. <\/p>\n
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\tIn fact, you may find an examination of the twists, turns, close calls and bad breaks that swung the result of Saturday’s College Football Playoff semifinal rather maddeng. But someone’s got to do it.\n<\/p>\n
\tOf course, a contest of any kind can’t get much closer than a one-point margin separating the winner and loser. The kick that would’ve won the game for Ohio State in the final seconds, though, wasn’t especially close. The 50-yard try from Noah Ruggles veered far left of the goal post at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, and the Buckeyes’ fate was sealed. But given that Ruggles hit a 48-yard field goal earlier in the night, Ohio State may only have needed a few more yards to set Ruggles up for a more feasible kick.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tRELATED<\/strong> Five Things: Buckeyes Fail to Hold Late Lead, Fall to Georgia in CFP Semifinal\n<\/p>\n\tAfter a 27-yard CJ Stroud scramble put Ohio State at the Georgia 31-yard line with 24 seconds to go, it looked like the Buckeyes might have just won the game. But only at the edge of Ruggles’ range, Ohio State failed to gain another inch before the kick. In fact, the Buckeyes actually lost a yard on a run up the middle with Dallan Hayden on the next play after Stroud’s run, a call that Ryan Day received criticism for after the fact.\n<\/p>\n
\tDay said there were plays he wished he had back in the Peach Bowl, but that wasn’t one of them.\n<\/p>\n
\t\u201cTwo timeouts left adding that into the field goal. If we didn’t have two timeouts left, they were going zero,\u201d Day said. \u201cIf you split one, you could come out the back end there. Two timeouts left, any couple yards right there could add to the field goal, and that was the idea. Didn’t quite execute it as well as we would like to, but I wouldn’t change that call.\u201d\n<\/p>\n