Thank you, Arkansas Razorbacks

The Buckeyes won an enormously thrilling Sugar Bowl last night. But they didn't win because they outplayed the Arkansas Razorbacks, per se -- they won because the Razorbacks out-mistaked them. (You're right, that's not a word. Sue me.)

It's not that Ohio State didn't make any mistakes, of course. Arkansas just didn't make the Buckeyes pay, or at least not enough. The obvious example is Terrelle Pryor's fumble that wound up leading to OSU's first touchdown. Two Razorbacks had their hands on the ball, but neither could corral it. When Dane Sanzenbacher came up with it in the end zone, five Arkansas players were in the shot. Ironically, had Pryor not fumbled that ball, it wouldn't have been a touchdown.

Of course, there's Boom Herron's fumble on fourth-and-1 from the OSU 38, with the score 31-26 and the Buckeyes quickly losing their grip on the game. The result was just the same as if he'd been tackled behind the line of scrimmage, but regardless, the Razorbacks were not able to turn that into points. And there was Herron getting tackled in the end zone for a safety. The initial hit came in the field of play, but Herron disengaged from that tackler in time to get swallowed up by several others. If he'd just gone down on the first hit, it would not have been a safety. That was a mental error by Herron.

But those mistakes were nothing next to the errors made by Arkansas players. Razorback "receivers" dropped five passes, including one that would have gone for a touchdown and one that looked like it would have set up at least a fourth-and-short on Arkansas's next-to-last possession of the game. And of course, Ryan Mallett made the biggest mistake of the game by throwing the ball right to Buckeye defensive lineman Solomon Thomas on what could be the last pass of his college career. Not to mention the numerous penalties the Razorbacks accumulated throughout the game. Those miscues added up to a loss for Arkansas.

The difference between the two halves was amazing. Ohio State was unstoppable in the first half. Pryor and the offense were simply toying with Arkansas. Everything they did worked. In the second half, nothing worked except Pryor's legs. He busted off a few good runs -- some on designed runs, some on scrambles -- that kept the ball in the Buckeyes' possession long enough to hold off the Razorbacks. But the offense just wasn't moving. That's in contrast to Mallett and the Arkansas offense, who didn't make many long plays, but used solid, time-consuming drives to get back in the game.

As we all know, Pryor, Thomas, Herron, Buster Posey and Mike Adams will all miss the first five games next year. I don't think anyone can deny the Buckeyes would have lost last night without those guys. Their absence will hurt. But at least they can enjoy this win. It probably put them in the top 5 in the season-ending poll. That's not too shabby.