The Ohio State football program starts its journey to winning back-to-back national championships on New Year's Eve in the Cotton Bowl. After the Buckeyes earned a first-round bye, they have been able to spend all of their time fixing what went wrong against Indiana.
In the Cotton Bowl, the Ohio State Buckeyes will be taking on Miami. Miami took down Texas A&M 10-3 in a game that wasn't very fun to watch. The biggest reason why the Hurricanes won that game was the play of running back Mark Fletcher. Fletcher had 17 carries for 172 yards, helping win the game.
Fletcher is someone with whom the Buckeyes are very familiar. He was recruited heavily by Ohio State out of high school back in the 2023 recruiting class. In fact, Fletcher decided to commit to Ohio State at one point before changing his mind and picking the Hurricanes.
Mark Fletcher is looking to make the Ohio State football team miserable
Ohio State has the top defense in the country in a lot of stats. Not only are they the best scoring defense, the best passing defense, and the best defense in terms of total yards allowed. Quite frankly, they are a menace as a unit that stops pretty much every opponent.
The Buckeyes have the fifth-best rush defense in the country, and that is what Fletcher is going to have to contend with. Carson Beck struggled mightily against the Aggies, so they had to lean on Fletcher. If the Buckeyes want to win the game, they have to stop Fletcher.
This year, Fletcher has rushed for ten touchdowns. He does have less than 900 yards rushing, so the Buckeyes don't need to worry about him hitting too many home runs out of the backfield. Still, stopping the run will leave the Hurricanes with nowhere to hide.
The former Buckeye commit is determined to make that impossible.