If you’re reading this, you passed the Oregon Ducks on Wednesday (more on that in a moment).

No. 8 Ohio State made its second nearly flawless College Football Playoff game in a row, defeating No. 1 Oregon, the last remaining undefeated FBS team, 41-21 in the 111th Rose Bowl game.

Here are three key stats from the Buckeyes’ CFP quarterfinal victory.

187 yards

It was only fitting that Ohio State legend Cris Carter was on the sidelines in Pasadena. Jeremiah Smith had broken nearly all of Carter’s Ohio State freshman receiving records, but the NFL Hall of Famer still held the single-game record for receiving yards: 172 yards, scored in the 1985 Rose Bowl against USC.

Thanks to two touchdowns of more than 40 yards that helped Ohio State take an early 24-0 lead, Smith had five catches for 161 yards at the 10:28 mark of the second quarter. Oregon had 60 total yards as a team at that point.

A 10-yard catch early in the third quarter brought him within one yard of Carter’s mark, and a 16-yard reception later in the quarter gave Smith 187 for the day, good enough for another record. He warned Oregon earlier in the week against covering him alone, and he delivered.

Smith also set a Big Ten freshman record for touchdowns with 14 and counting. In two College Football Playoff games, the 19-year-old had 13 catches for 290 yards and four touchdowns.

-23 yards

After putting up 155 rushing yards on the Ohio State defense in the teams’ first meeting this season, the Silver Bullets held Oregon to -23 yards on 28 attempts. Yes, sacks are being baked in that number, but my goodness. If you take back the sacks – all eight of them – the Ducks ran for a paltry 33 yards with an average of 1.7 per carry.

Oregon’s -23 rushing yards were the fourth fewest allowed in a bowl game since 2002 and the fewest allowed by Ohio State in a postseason game. In fact, it was the fewest allowed by a Buckeye defense since the 1969 team held Northwestern to -29 on the ground. 1969!

Credit goes to Ohio State’s defensive front, which has been great all season but is playing at a whole new level in the College Football Playoff. OSU sacked Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel eight times and recorded 13 tackles for loss in the game, a vast improvement from the zero sacks and two tackles for loss in the teams’ first meeting.

The eight sacks were two more than Oregon had allowed in its last 11 games combined and set a program record for sacks in a postseason game (Cotton Bowl vs. USC in 2017).

34 points

Ohio State University couldn’t have asked for a better start, going up 34-0 with 2:59 left in the first half. Oregon’s biggest deficit en route to 13 wins and no losses was eight points, which was against the Buckeyes when they met in October. The 34-point lead was the largest any team has had over a No. 1 team since Alabama beat Notre Dame 35-0 in the 2013 BCS Championship Game.

The Buckeyes struck with three 40-yard touchdown passes and TreVeyon Henderson’s school Rose Bowl-record 66-yard touchdown run to take control early. An Oregon touchdown and conversion late in the first half created a 34-8 lead, the third-largest halftime lead by any team in 111-game Rose Bowl history (Stanford +36 vs. Iowa in 2016).

Will Howard was nearly perfect, throwing for 218 yards in the first quarter alone – the second-most yards of any Big Ten quarterback in a game in the last decade (CJ Stroud, 241 vs. Michigan State in 2021).

It was such a beginning for Ohio State.

Bonus stats and numbers

Ohio State is now 5-4 in College Football Playoff games, while Ryan Day moved to 3-3 in CFP games as the Buckeyes’ head coach. Jeremiah Smith became the third player with multiple 40-yard touchdowns in a CFP game and the first player in more than 20 years with more than 115 receiving yards in a quarter against the Oregon Ducks… This was Ohio State’s first win against the undefeated No. 1 team since defeating Miami national championship in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl…Ohio State now has 10 Rose Bowl Game victories, the second most of any program (USC with 25) … Since losing to USC in the 1985 Rose Bowl, the Buckeyes are 5-0 in Pasadena … Ryan Day improved to 2-0 in Rose Bowl play and joins Woody Hayes as the only Ohio State coaches with at least two wins in the game … Denzel Burke, who previously struggled against Oregon The season finished the day with one goal and zero missed receptions … The 20-point win was the largest for Ohio State against a team ranked No. 1 in in program history, surpassing the 13-point victory over No. 1 Purdue in 1969.