Ohio State Sunday scouting report: What the Buckeyes must do to beat Georgia

ATHENS — Ohio State will head to Atlanta on Monday with visions of 40 points on the scoreboard and a second crack at rival Michigan in the CFP Championship game.

There’s no other way for the Buckeyes to approach things if they hope to win the showdown against No. 1-ranked Georgia at 8 p.m. next Saturday in the CFP Semifinal.

Ohio State beat writer Nathan Baird knows Ryan Day’s team as well as anyone and shared the team’s 40-point goal in our 5-question Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl scouting report with the talented veteran Cleveland.com journalist.

Kirby Smart has said in the past this season that Georgia’s defensive goal is not to allow more than 13 points in any game, a standard the Bulldogs measured up to in seven of 13 contests this season.

The Ohio State scoring goal might not be as crazy as it seems when one considers the Buckeyes ranked second in the nation with 44.5 points per game and scored 40 or more in 9 of 12 contests.

Further, the Bulldogs are coming off arguably their worst defensive outing of the season, giving up a season-high 549 yards — 502 passing — and 30 points to an LSU team that averaged 32.3 and was playing with a backup quarterback half the game.

Did Tigers’ coach Brian Kelly find something that Ohio State can exploit?

“In its totality,” Kelly said of what decided the LSU-Georgia game, “you’re talking about five or six plays where, look, could have, would have, should have, right?”

And, before the notion gets started that LSU’s offense didn’t pick up until Georgia opened up a big lead in the second half, it’s worth noting the Tigers out-gained the Bulldogs 158-99 in the first quarter.

Indeed, things could have been very different had Nazir Stackhouse not blocked the Tigers’ field goal attempt that All-American Chris Smith scooped up and returned in 96 yards for a momentum-shifting touchdown

Day is likely aware that scoring in the 30s likely won’t be enough if the game turns into the shootout many expect.

Indeed, the last team that beat Georgia was Alabama, scoring a 41-24 win in last year’s SEC Championship Game.

And the Bulldogs’ previous loss before that? Yep, 40-plus points again -- 44-28 at the hands of Dan Mullen’s Florida Gators in 2020. And before that? You guessed it, 41-24, to Alabama in Tuscaloosa during that 2020 season.

Kirby Smart is 56-1 at Georgia when the Dawgs score 30 or more points, his only loss coming to a Butch Jones-coached Tennessee team that connected on a Josh Dobbs’ Hail Mary in 2016.

Question One: What do you see as the most important thing the Buckeyes need to shore up to beat Georgia?

Nathan Baird: “The easy answer would be to simply choke off the defensive lapses that allowed Michigan to score five explosive touchdowns. But there was already a fluky quality there that Georgia might not be able to replicate.

Really, OSU needs to do what it does best – perform efficiently on offense. It needs to stay ahead of the chains with its running game, but it also needs to get the ball in the hands if its best playmakers.

When it does that, there is maybe no offense in the country that puts more pressure on the opposing offense to play near-perfect and not waste drives. Ohio State wasted too many of its own against Michigan.

Day already said OSU probably needs to score 40 to win, and preparing for this matchup has centered around that goal.”