College Football

RJ Young's take on the New Year's Six and Matt Corral's injury

Updated Jan. 3, 2022 6:55 p.m. ET

By RJ Young
FOX Sports College Football Writer

New Year’s Day was one for offensive fireworks.

Let's start in Pasadena. Ohio State defeated Pac-12 champion and No. 11 Utah 48-45 in the Rose Bowl, but the contest will forever be known as The Jaxon-Smith Njigba Game.

The Buckeyes’ top receiver caught 15 passes for 347 yards, an all-time bowl record and the fifth-most receiving yards in a game in FBS history.

The Ohio State record for receiving yards in a game was 253, held by Terry Glenn since 1995. Smith-Njigba surpassed 253 yards receiving in the third quarter as the Buckeyes began mounting their comeback.

He also broke David Boston’s 23-year-old school record for receiving yards in a season (1,435) with 1,606. That also means Smith-Njigba owns the Big Ten record for receiving yards in a season.

Three of those 15 catches were touchdowns. OSU's Marvin Harrison Jr. also recorded three touchdown receptions on Saturday — after walking into the Rose Bowl with just five catches all season.

OSU quarterback C.J. Stroud completed 37 of 46 passes for 573 yards with six touchdowns and a pick. Stroud set the Ohio State record for passing yards in a game.

Stroud, a redshirt freshman, also broke Justin Fields’ school record for completion percentage (70.2) in a season with 71.9, Fields’ school record for passer rating (181.4) at 186.6 and Dwayne Haskins’ school record for passing yards per game (345.1) at 369.6.

Before Saturday, the previous high for passing yards against Utah this season was 401, by USC. The firm of Stroud and Smith-Njigba nearly matched that number by themselves.

Stroud wears No. 7, and Smith-Njigba wears No. 11. Everybody knows 7-11 is open 24/7.

The Buckeyes' offense put up 683 yards while the Utes' offense put up 463, including 226 on the ground. OSU is the first team to gain more than 600 yards against Utah since New Mexico gained 633 yards in 2003 against the Utes, and 48 points is the most ever scored in the Rose Bowl, surpassing when USC scored 42 in 1974.

The game began and ended as a barnburner. OSU and Utah combined for a record 56 points in the first half. In 2:08 of game time, four 50-yard touchdowns were scored.

Ohio State coach Ryan Day was emotional by game’s end, and Buckeyes fans could understand why. When the Buckeyes lost The Game to Michigan 42-27 on Nov. 27, they also lost a chance at the Big Ten title and a spot in the College Football Playoff. Then, heading into the Rose Bowl, two of OSU's top three wideouts — Garrett Wilson and Chris Olave — opted out in preparation for the NFL Draft.

The resolve of Day's team was tested. Down 14 at halftime, his defense rallied after giving up 35 points in the first half. OSU held the Utes to just 10 points in the second, and the offense went to work.

Now, the Buckeyes are in position to begin their pursuit of the national title in January 2023, and they will be one of the most dangerous offenses in the country.

The SEC comeback

The SEC was 1-5 in bowl games before New Year’s Eve. Since then, the teams from the best league in the country have played like it.

Going back to Alabama and Georgia winning their respective CFP semifinal games, the class of the SEC has shown up. SEC teams have beaten the American Conference Champion (Cincinnati), Big Ten Conference Champion (Michigan) and Big Ten runner-up (Iowa).

Arkansas finished the season with a strong showing against Penn State in the Outback Bowl, winning 24-10 by simply pounding the rock. The Razorbacks ran for 361 yards on a whopping 58 rush attempts against the Nittany Lions.

Those are service academy numbers and representative of the kind of attitude Sam Pittman’s bunch has played with all season. In the third quarter alone, Arkansas rushed 17 times for 176 yards.

Razorback quarterback KJ Jefferson rushed for more yards (110) than he passed for (90) and was named the game’s MVP.

"That's a little bit of physicality of who he is and hopefully what our team's about," Pittman said.

After beating Texas and Texas A&M — for the fun title of Texas State Champs — the Razorbacks (9-4) capped off their best season since 2011, when they finished 11-2. It marked only the seventh time in the past 30 years that the Razorbacks have won nine games.

Kentucky continued the SEC’s dominance with a 20-17 win against Iowa. UK wideout Wan’Dale Robinson stamped a spectacular season with 10 catches for 170 yards. For the year, he had 104 catches for 1,334 yards.

Robinson spent the previous two seasons at Nebraska, where he recorded more than 900 yards and 91 catches before breaking out in Lexington.

Spencer Sanders cements memorable Oklahoma State season

In defeating No. 5 Notre Dame 37-35 in the Fiesta Bowl, the Cowboys completed one of their best seasons in school history.

Oklahoma State's 12 wins tie for the most in school history (2011), with three of those victories coming against Texas, Oklahoma and ND. The Pokes are 15-6 in their past 21 games against AP Top-25 teams.

After coming inches from winning the Big 12 Championship, the Pokes, down 21 points at one point, scored 30 straight against the Fighting Irish in coach Marcus Freeman’s head-coaching debut.

When the OSU defense, which had been the strength of the team for most of the season, faltered, senior quarterback Spencer Sanders played one of the best games of his career. He broke the Fiesta Bowl record for total offense (496 total yards) and accounted for four TDs in the win.

He is just the second player in history to pass for 350 yards and rush for 100 yards in a bowl game, joining former Clemson quarterback Tahj Boyd, who accomplished the feat in the 2014 Orange Bowl.

Matt Corral injury intensifies opt-out debate

Ole Miss quarterback Matt Corral was excited to play in the Sugar Bowl against Big 12 champ Baylor. Corral told media he never even thought of opting out, even though he’s one of the best quarterbacks available in April’s NFL Draft.

So when he went down with a right ankle injury late in the first quarter, many felt sorry for him. His absence was felt in the Rebels' 21-7 loss to Baylor, which recorded its first 12-win season and first Sugar Bowl win since 1957.

Corral was carted to the locker room and had X-rays on his ankle, which were reportedly negative. He returned to the sideline on crutches.

It’s too soon to know what the injury means for Corral's positioning, but he could fall in the draft. This is exactly the scenario so many players choose to avoid by opting out of playing bowl games altogether.

Over the past decade, the conversation around players choosing to opt out has intensified. With 41 bowl games — but only two of them seeming significant with the inception of the CFP — some believe this generation of players does not care enough about the postseason. Others recognize that the players are merely protecting the most valuable commodity they have: their bodies.

College football is a multibillion-dollar business that does not pay its labor. It barters in scholarships. The NFL is a multibillion-dollar business that pays its labor, and many players have decided that, whenever possible, they’d rather get paid outright than barter for an education.

If college football wants fewer players to opt out, it needs to further incentivize playing in the postseason.

Bowl gifts and a trip to New Orleans are no longer going to do it for the stars of the sport, precisely because playing in bowl games is not a unique and privileged activity anymore. Now, they are games that even teams with losing records and a high-enough APR score can slot into.

The solution isn't to create more bowl games; it's to create more games that matter inside the CFP system. That means expanding the playoff from four teams to at least 12 or, my favorite number of playoff teams, 16.

The Fiesta Bowl, Peach Bowl and Rose Bowl all would have been outstanding quarterfinals this season — and would have offset the putrid semifinal games.

Perhaps, if those games meant playing for a chance to win a national title, Notre Dame safety and All-American Kyle Hamilton and running back Kyren Williams (Fiesta), Pitt quarterback and Heisman finalist Kenny Pickett (Peach), Michigan State running back and unanimous All-American Kenneth Walker III (Peach) and Ohio State receivers Garrett Wilson and All-American Chris Olave (Rose) would still be playing college football, rather than preparing for their NFL careers.

Every single New Year’s Six Bowl game — from the Peach to the Outback to the Citrus to the Rose to the Sugar Bowl — was a better game to watch than the CFP semis.

That's not an aberration. That's a clue, a hint, a nudge to continue evolving the postseason model.

There’s still a chance for the powers-that-be to fix the sport’s postseason and make it more accommodating and equitable for players and fans: Create not just more games but more games that matter to us all.

The FCS plays 11 regular-season games and uses a 24-team playoff that begins Thanksgiving weekend and stretches into January. No one is upset that North Dakota State has won eight national titles since 2011 and will play in the FCS championship game on Saturday against Montana State.

FCS teams play 16 games at most, and the top seeds play 15 because they get a first-round bye. The CFP national champion and runner-up will play 15 games.

And, remember, the FCS plays with 20 more teams in its playoff than the FBS does.

What cheapens the regular season is the regular season. There’s no need for 12 regular-season games. That’s a 21st century invention, just like adding enough bowl games to get to 41.

If the extra game really bothers you, build in another bye week and start the season a week earlier. It wouldn't cheapen the regular season or lead to further injury any more than the Sugar Bowl is responsible for Corral’s injury.

This FBS postseason is fixable. Enough people just have to want it to be fixed.

RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports and the host of the podcast "The No. 1 Ranked Show with RJ Young." Follow him on Twitter at @RJ_Young, and subscribe to "The RJ Young Show" on YouTube. He is not on a StepMill.