sidelined for at least the CFP quarterfinals<\/a>\u00a0with an injury. It\u2019s been a rocky season for Tshabola, who Joshua Padilla or Gabe VanSickle often subbed for at RG throughout the year. VanSickle, who\u2019s been nicknamed \u201cSicko Mode\u201d by his teammates,\u00a0took Tshabola\u2019s place after the injury occurred in the Big Ten title game\u00a0and could now be in line to make his first career start in the Cotton Bowl.\n<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cSicko Mode, he\u2019s been proving that he’s more than capable of going out there and playing with us,\u201d Hinzman said. \u201cWe always talk about, \u2018What are you doing, how are you doing it, and why are you doing it?\u2019 And I think he’s done a great job of not only building his own confidence, but building confidence with Phillip (Daniels) and I, playing in between there.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\tMiami\u2019s defensive front is a force. The Hurricanes are fourth nationally with 41 sacks this season. There are few defensive end tandems in the country better than Rueben Bain Jr. and Akheem Mesidor. Bain, a consensus first-team All-American, has 42 tackles, 11.5 tackles for loss and 7.5 sacks with an interception and a forced fumble this year. Mesidor, who joined\u00a0Bain as a first-team All-ACC performer, has 51 tackles, 13.5 TFLs, 8.5 sacks and four forced fumbles. Add 4.5 sacks from 300-pound defensive tackle Ahmed Moten Sr., and it makes for a daunting front.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tHow does Ohio State plan to slow them down?\n<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cBlock them,\u201d Day said, drawing a laugh from the media. \u201cNot easy, not easy. All of them. Moten, Bain, Mesidor. I mean, they’re good players. And they come. And I think Jason Taylor’s doing a great job down there, coaching those guys and the way they play. And so it’s a huge challenge for our offensive line, and what comes with it. But as we’ve always talked about, it’s not just the offensive line. It’s everybody involved with it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\tDay added that Ohio State\u2019s offensive linemen are \u201cfired up\u201d knowing the attention will be on them on Dec. 31.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\n\tCircling back to Sayin, getting the ball out of his hands quicker is a matter of being willing to take checkdowns, he said. He\u2019s\u00a0shown great pocket presence the rest of the season, a big part of why he was a Heisman Trophy finalist.\n<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cSometimes you’re waiting, you might have a big shot downfield, you\u2019re waiting, you’re waiting, you’re waiting,\u201d Sayin said. \u201cBut sometimes we can just get the ball out of our hands. We see it, let’s get it out now. Let’s get the ball (out) and get five yards and move on to the next play.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\tIf Sayin finishes with as clean a jersey as was usual before the Indiana game,\u00a0Ohio State should be in position to wash away Miami and head to the CFP semifinals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Indiana came within one sack of doubling Ohio State\u2019s season total for sacks allowed. The Hoosiers piled up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-369462","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}