The Rundown Take
Miami vs Ohio State Preview: The Cotton Bowl, the Trenches, and 23 Years of Unfinished Business
With AO under the weather, LFJ ran the Sunday show with a special guest — Easy of the Full Blitz Podcast, the happiest LSU fan in America now that Lane Kiffin is headed to Baton Rouge — for a neutral-eyes breakdown of the Cotton Bowl showdown with Ohio State. Then the phone lines delivered a full spectrum: die-hard Canes, an unbothered Buckeye, and one Louisiana peanut gallery.
Key Takeaways
- The unanimous battleground: the line of scrimmage. Easy's blunt read — Miami can't win a 10-6 rock fight against this Ohio State offense, so Sawyer-pressure on the quarterback is non-negotiable.
- Indiana wrote the blueprint in the Big Ten title game: get physical with an Ohio State interior line that's not as good as advertised, and rushed for over 200 against it.
- Easy's marker: if Mark Fletcher breaks 110 rushing yards with four or more catches, Miami wins. Time of possession is the key stat.
- The Jeremiah Smith subplot boiled over — the hometown kid who said he'd have been a Cane if Miami had been winning is getting the full family-feud treatment, and callers expect the Megatron double-team with Tate as the real danger.
- Predictions: the Italian Stallion booked Miami by 10; Jay took Miami 24-20; Easy leaned Ohio State 27-24 before amending it to "the team with the ball last wins."
Beck, Dawson, and the Right Game vs the Perfect Game
Larry Frank laid out the distinction that framed the whole show: the perfect game is a coordinator stubbornly calling his dialed-up gadget script; the right game is assessing the defense in front of you and calling what beats it. For Miami that means never asking Carson Beck to stretch the field under a sped-up clock — his ten interceptions all came under pressure — and feeding the running back room until Ohio State proves it can stop it. Caller Rocky offered the counterpoint: forget right or perfect, Dawson just needs to call HIS game, the one that got Miami here.
A Buckeye Walks Into the Family Reunion
Gold J took up the open invitation and repped Ohio State without flinching: the offensive line gave up five sacks in one bad game all year, the "we ain't played nobody" narrative is the other teams' problem, and — credit where due — he called the game a pick'em rather than trash-talking. Studio answered with the sermon of the morning:
"It ain't just about the ring they stole 23 years ago. Ohio State is stealing our hometown heroes. This is the game that turns that tide."
The Stakes Beyond the Scoreboard
Easy closed with the recruiting math: win this game and Miami re-enters every South Florida living room as a program that competes for national titles, not just ACC ones — the difference that decides whether the next Jeremiah Smith signs at the eleventh hour for the home team. The crew also vented about the ACC's tiebreaker fiasco that put a 7-5 Duke in the conference championship, and confessed the real New Year's Eve fear isn't the Buckeyes — it's the officiating crew.
Hype show Tuesday night with D, Mr. B and the raffle drawing. Then Dallas. New year, new memory — see them on the 31st.