SPORTS
Thursday, January 8, 2015
College Football
East Oregonian
Page 3B
Elliott’s eyes on long run
say it all for Buckeyes
Running back has run for over 200 yards in last two games
By RUSTY MILLER
Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio —
Ezekiel Elliott’s eyes saw run-
ning room ahead. It was what
was behind him that concerned
him the most.
As the Ohio State back scis-
sored through a hole around
left end and broke into the clear
down the sideline in the Sugar
Bowl, he knew he had no one
in front of him. Just in case, he
glanced up at the gigantic vid-
eo board above the end zone
to make sure no one from Ala-
bama was gaining on him.
“I’m looking up at the Jum-
botron and seeing the guys
behind me, if they’re close
enough so I could slow down a
little bit,” he said, grinning.
They weren’t. Elliott’s stun-
ning run, covering 85 yards
with 3:24 left, proved to be the
padding the Buckeyes needed
in a 42-35 victory that pushed
them into the Jan. 12 national
championship game against
Oregon in Arlington, Texas.
It’ll be hard for Elliott to spy
on his pursuers at AT&T Stadi-
um, because the video boards
are overhead and not at the
AP Photo/Bill Haber
Ohio State running back Ezekiel Elliott celebrates after the Sugar Bowl NCAA
college football playoff semifinal game against Alabama, Thursday, Jan. 1,
2015, in New Orleans. Ohio State won 42-35.
But Elliott has a plan for
that, too. He cites a reluctant
running star (for Alabama) in a
“(I’m) just going to have
to GO! Run, Forrest, run!” he
said, laughing.
Odds are the millions at
home and 108,610 fans in the
Sugar Bowl watching Elliott’s
eyes staring at the video board
didn’t know much about the
sophomore from St. Louis.
Soft-spoken and self-effacing,
much better known and more
of a focal point when the Buck-
eyes meet the Ducks on Jan. 12.
He’s more than a runner,
too. He’s also a great blocker,
although few beyond his team-
mates even notice.
“Ezekiel Elliott plays as
hard as any back I’ve ever wit-
nessed without the ball,” coach
Urban Meyer said.
Taking over for the graduat-
ed Carlos Hyde and his 1,521
yards a year ago, Elliott has
followed a get-to-know-you
freshman year by rushing for
1,632 yards and 14 touchdowns
— including a jaw-dropping
220 yards on 20 carries against
Wisconsin in the Big Ten title
game with 230 more again on
20 carries against the Crimson
Tide. And he spent the year
having trouble gripping the ball
after breaking a bone in his left
hand during August camp.
Only three Ohio State backs
have ever gained more yards
in a season (Eddie George
had 1,927 while winning the
Heisman Trophy in 1995, Keith
Byars had 1,764 in ‘84 and re-
vered two-time Heisman win-
‘74).
“He (reads blocking pat-
terns) instinctively and then
explodes into open seams,”
Ed Warinner, Ohio State’s line
coach and co-offensive coordi-
nator said. “He loves football
and plays every snap like it’s
his last.”
Elliott’s dad, Stacy, played
football at Missouri, and his
mom, Dawn, was a member
seemed a foregone conclusion
that the four-star prospect, who
led his high school to the state
title game as a senior while
rushing for 2,155 yards, would
go to nearby Mizzou.
But he visited Ohio State,
fell in love with the campus
and Ohio’s passion for all
things Buckeye. He never real-
ly looked back. His parents had
no problem with the choice.
Now, Elliott’s glance at the
video board is prominent on
Ohio State’s athletic website
— and could end up being the
signature moment of the Buck-
eyes’ season.
Bowl ratings up, attendance down
Associated Press
Atlantic Coast Conference program in a
prime-time game. This year, the playoff
committee arranged a matchup that had
a 12:30 p.m. kickoff.
TCU trounced Ole Miss 42-3 in front
of an announced attendance of 65,706,
ending the bowl’s string of 17 consecu-
tive sellouts.
“Obviously it was a 12:30 game
where in the past we were in prime
time,” Peach Bowl CEO and president
Gary Stokan said. “We’re going to
study everything. I don’t know if that
had anything to do with it. We’re study-
ing everything because everything has
changed for us. ... But how do you com-
plain with (65,706)?”
Waters suggested that some bowls
should try attracting more local fans
The new playoff era is drawing lots
of college football fans to bowl game
broadcasts. But it isn’t necessarily
bringing more fans into stadium seats.
ESPN announced that the Rose Bowl
-
lege Football Playoff drew the largest
two audiences in cable television his-
tory, with each game attracting over
drew more viewers than any of the four
BCS championship games broadcast by
ESPN, which also will air Monday’s
title game between Ohio State and Or-
egon.
“That was a pleasant surprise,” said
Burke Magnus, ESPN’s senior vice
president of programming and acqui-
sitions. “We’re cautiously optimistic
about Monday, but obviously the new
format has resonated with fans.”
ESPN spokesperson Keri Potts said
that ESPN’s bowl telecasts through
New Year’s Day drew an average rat-
ing of 3.4, whereas its average rating
through all its bowl telecasts other than
the championship last season was 3.2.
Ratings represent the percentage of
homes with televisions tuned to a pro-
gram.
While ratings are slightly up across
the board for bowl games, attendance
has dipped.
The 38 bowl games this season have
drawn an average announced atten-
dance of 43,285, down 9.2 percent from
the average of 47,659 for the 34 bowls
last season that led up to the BCS cham-
pionship game.
that all four new bowls that had their in-
augural games this season drew fewer
than 30,000 fans. But even if you throw
those four games out of the mix, the av-
erage attendance for the remaining 34
bowls is 45,904, down 3.7 percent from
last season.
Wright Waters, the executive direc-
tor for the Football Bowl Association,
regular-season trends. A CBSSports.
com study showed that the average reg-
ular-season attendance for home games
this year was 43,483, down 4 percent
since 2000.
“It’s not just a bowl problem,” Wa-
ters said. “It’s a college football problem
that we’ve got to deal with.”
created plenty of uncertainty for all
the bowl games. The old BCS format
was replaced by the “New Year’s Six,”
which featured the Fiesta, Orange and
Peach on New Year’s Eve with the two
Year’s Day.
That new format led to plenty of
change. For instance, the Peach Bowl
Bowl and traditionally pitted a South-
eastern Conference school against an
schools playing in the game each year.
He cited the Sugar, Peach and Rose
as three bowl games with exceptional
community support.
“We’ve probably gotten comfortable
with crowds coming from schools,”
Waters said. “Just as schools are having
trouble with their attendance, we’re go-
ing to have to get more active locally.”
Waters said bowl games that have
attendance increases generally have
compelling matchups featuring region-
al opponents that are hungry for a bowl
appearance.
The Texas Bowl had all those ele-
ments, as former Southwest Conference
rivals Arkansas and Texas made the short
bowl appearance since the 2011 season.
Arkansas’ 31-7 victory drew a sellout
crowd of 71,115, more than double the
announced attendance of 32,327 for the
Texas Bowl’s Syracuse-Minnesota pair-
ing last season.
But there apparently weren’t enough
of those types of matchups this bowl
season.
“You don’t really see too many sell-
outs this year, and I don’t think that’s
anything other than it’s just one of those
years,” Cotton Bowl president and CEO
Rick Baker said.
DUCKS: Familiarity antidote for high-powered offenses
Continued from 1B
These minds thinks alike.
Kelly, now coach of the Phil-
adelphia Eagles, was at Ohio
State’s Pro Day this year
and the coaches hung out a
lot. Kelly told reporters in
Philaldephia this summer
that Meyer is still one of the
guys with whom he talks
football.
“It’s plays, it’s schemes,
it’s what are you doing off
Kelly said in August, accord-
ing to csnphilly.com.
Again, Kelly isn’t at Or-
egon anymore. But he’s the
godfather of the Oregon way,
all over this game, on both
sides. Because it took a while
for Meyer to come around.
Meyer at Florida sent then
offensive coordinator Dan
Mullen to study up-tempo
offenses elsewhere, then
chucked the idea a few prac-
tices after Mullen returned.
Meyer said players lost their
technique, coaches were
more concerned with signal-
ing plays than coaching and
he hated everything about it,
including what might happen
in a game when that style of
offense doesn’t work.
“The risk of tempo of-
fense, which I debated for
years, you three-and-out
them and 24 seconds you
just took off the clock. And
you’re playing a good team,
that’s not good,” Meyer said.
“So there’s plus and minus-
es.”
By the time he was hired
at Ohio State, after spending
some of his year away from
coaching visiting Oregon and
observing how that program
worked, Meyer felt he didn’t
have a choice.
“It’s an advantage for the
offense,” Meyer said. “And if
you don’t take it, then that’s
-
bama is moving in that di-
rection. Is it full speed all the
time? We’re not. But certain-
ly that gives us an advantage
at times.”
At the moment, the teams
will hope to nullify that of-
fensive advantage, at least a
bit, with defensive familiar-
ity. Meyer can tell the Ohio
State defensive coaches how
the Oregon offense thinks by
telling them how the Ohio
State offense thinks.
“I know I’ve gone in there
and told our defense what we
don’t like and what bothers
us, and I’m sure they are do-
ing the same thing,” Meyer
said. “They see it every day
in practice. And there are
some things they do much
better than we do on the pe-
rimeter and there’s things we
do a little better than them.
“So it’s not exactly the
same, but similar philoso-
phy. So I’m sure there’s a lot
of conversation between the
two staffs (at each school).
More than normal games.”
The Buckeyes will prac-
tice against the Buckeyes
and the Ducks will practice
against the Ducks and when
the game kicks off Monday,
each defense will have a
good idea of what’s coming.
“We practice it all spring
and summer. We go against
a decent number of tempo
teams during the season,”
Ohio State defensive tackle
Michael Bennett said. “That
seems to be the new thing,
because I think tempo makes
good teams great and great
teams even better.”
This game is proof of that.
Looks like Ohio State and
Oregon were both right.
AP Photo/The Register-Guard, Chris Pietsch
Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota, left, signs an
autograph for Lynette Bassaw of Springfield, Ore. af-
ter practice in Eugene Wednesday.
Ducks, Buckeyes
settle into ‘weird’
game prep week
By ANNE M. PETERSON
Associated Press
EUGENE — Oregon is
treating this week like any
other this season. And while
that’s more comfortable in a
way, it also feels a little odd.
After all, the Ducks are
preparing to face Ohio State
in the national champion-
ship game Monday night at
AT&T Stadium in Arling-
ton, Texas. The two teams
season stretched out for one
more game by college foot-
ball’s new playoff system.
Both teams have already
had their bowl games and
all the hoopla that goes with
that, so this is more of a busi-
ness trip, said Oregon senior
safety Erick Dargan. A really
important business trip.
“It’s just like a regular
week. I think that actually
plays more to our advantage
than having a lot of time,”
Dargan said. “We’re back in
our groove.”
The Ducks (13-1) routed
Florida State 59-20 in the
Rose Bowl, while the Buck-
eyes (13-1) beat Alabama
42-35 in the Sugar Bowl on
New Year’s Day, paving the
way for the championship
11 days later.
Upon arrival for the
game in Pasadena, sec-
ond-seeded Oregon was in-
volved in all the customary
Rose Bowl activities, in-
cluding the obligatory visit
to Disneyland for the photo
op with Mickey Mouse.
They had essentially
already done their work:
There had been 26 days
between the team’s regu-
Granddaddy of Them All.
That gave the Ducks plen-
ty of time to scheme for the
Seminoles and quarterback
Jameis Winston.
The fourth-seeded Buck-
eyes were similarly pre-
pared upon arrival in New
Orleans, giving them time
for events like a dinner that
featured entertainment from
a couple of alligators and a
python.
Adding the national
championship as a 15th
game presents some unique
challenges for coaches and
their players — like guard-
ing against fatigue or injury.
“I was talking to some-
one earlier and they said
it’s been like 25 weeks. I
guess it is just part of the
grind. Part of our job is tak-
ing care of your body and
making sure you’re ready to
go when you’re number is
called,” said Ohio State se-
nior receiver Evan Spencer.
Buckeyes coach Urban
Meyer led a former team,
Florida, to national cham-
pionships in 2006 and 2008.
There wasn’t a lot of com-
parison he could offer.
“Practices are a little
different. Those ones, we
had 37 days to prepare. I
remember in ‘06 it was 37
or 47, some ridiculous num-
-
moved from the traditional
bowl date,” he said.
This one, Meyer said, “is
a one game shot that really,
you have four practices in
shoulder pads.”
Oregon was keeping ev-
erything the same as during
the regular season. Same
practice times, same meet-
ing schedule. The Ducks,
like the Buckeyes, leave
Friday for the Dallas area.
“We understand what
we’re playing for. But the
nice thing is that guys who
haven’t been in a game like
this — not many of us have
— it makes it easier to treat
it like a regular game,” Or-
egon center Hroniss Grasu
said.