Right from the moment the match-up was announced, tonight's Sugar Bowl was a showdown not just of two high-profile, top-10 powerhouses, but of two blue-chip quarterbacks who embody the prototypes of their particular vintage. In one corner, standing at 6-foot-5, 240 pounds, it's Ohio State's Terrelle Pryor, the lanky, shifty scrambler. In Arkansas' corner, it's 6-6, 250-pound Ryan Mallett, the statuesque artillery piece. The game itself has enough invested in the headliners that Sugar Bowl CEO Paul Hoolahan openly admitted to lobbying Ohio State to "preserve the integrity of this year's game" by deferring the start of five-game suspensions levied against Pryor and four other Buckeye starters until the start of next season. "Integrity," in this case, is synonymous with at least three good quarters of offensive fireworks.If it's sparks you want, though, real "Immovable Object Meets Irresistible Force" match-up that will determine the course of the game isn't Mallett vs. Pryor, who operates within a philosophy that remains more than content to play a game of defense and field position as long as the score allows it. It's Mallett vs. Ohio State's top-ranked secondary, which has an answer for every line on the celebrated slinger's gaudy resumé:
• Point: Arkansas leads the SEC and ranks fourth nationally in pass efficiency and yards. Counterpoint: Ohio State is fourth nationally in efficiency defense and sixth in passing yards allowed.
• Point: Mallett's 9.9 yards per pass ranks third nationally, behind only Heisman finalists Cam Newton and Kellen Moore. Counterpoint: Ohio State ranks third nationally in yards per pass allowed.
• Point: Four different Razorback receivers come into the game with more than 500 yards on at least 30 receptions apiece. Counterpoint: Four starters in Ohio State's back seven were voted first-team All-Big Ten.
• Point: Excluding the shootout loss at Auburn (where backup Tyler Wilson lit up the Tigers for 322 yards and four touchdowns after Mallett was knocked out of the game), Mallett has gone over 300 yards in all but two games, one of them a 58-21 rout over UTEP in which he ripped the Miners for five touchdowns. Counterpoint: Ohio State has held all but two opposing offenses below 200 yards passing, and none remotely near 300.
• Point: The highest passing total against the Buckeyes is just 232 yards, by Miami on Sept. 11. Counterpoint: Even the Razorbacks' most modest effort through the air was good for 251 yards against UTEP.
• Point: Mallett has thrown a touchdown pass in every game, with at least three scoring strikes in four of the Razorbacks' last five games. Counterpoint: Ohio State has allowed seven touchdown passes total this season, three of them in garbage time of blowouts over Ohio and Eastern Michigan.
Et cetera. It's two heavyweights standing toe-to-toe with an opponent with the exact same height, reach and record.
The only real difference is the opponents they've knocked out to get to this stage. It's not exactly a staggering insight to point out that Ryan Mallett is the best quarterback the Buckeyes have seen – aside from Cam Newton and Andrew Luck, he's probably the best quarterback anyone has seen. Ohio State, though, hasn't seen anyone who's even in the ballpark. Statistically, the most explosive passing game OSU faced was Indiana's; the only quarterback on the entire schedule with a likely pro future (as a quarterback, anyway) was Iowa's Ricky Stanzi, who's projected in the ballpark of the sixth round in April's draft. Most of the other quarterbacks the Buckeyes saw in conference play were freshmen (Illinois' Nathan Scheelhaase, Purdue's Rob Henry and Sean Robinson), walk-ons (Penn State's Matt McGloin) or run-first types (Michigan's Denard Robinson).
The only passer they faced with an efficiency rating within 10 points of Mallett's, Wisconsin's Scott Tolzien, completed 13 of 16 passes with a touchdown, the only decent efficiency rating against OSU all season and no turnovers in the Buckeyes' only loss of the year. Mallett doesn't have Wisconsin's grinding ground game to lean on, but he remains in another class entirely from the motley lineup of "athletes" and game managers Ohio State has encountered to date.
If the Buckeyes can hang their hat on anything, it's that those three defenses were also the three that held the Razorbacks to their lowest point totals of the season – 20 against Alabama, 24 against A&M and 31 against LSU – largely by applying some consistent pressure: Combined, the Tide, Aggies and Tigers managed to drag Mallett to the ground for nine sacks and hassle him into six interceptions, most notably the pair of fourth quarter picks he served up under duress to fuel Alabama's comeback. Ohio State's front four is a burly, run-stuffing group, not a fleet of sleek edge rushers (the Buckeyes' sack leader, Nate Williams, has just 4.5), but the assault on the quarterback has to begin by taking away running back Knile Davis, who emerged as an All-SEC caliber workhorse down the stretch with five 100-yard efforts in the last six games, logging 30 carries in each of the last two.
It's no coincidence that Razorbacks haven't lost since Davis emerged from the pack as the full-times starter his presence forces defense to pick their poison rather than blanket the secondary in coverage or tee off on Mallett in the pass rush. So far, no one has been able to shut down either one, much less both. If Ohio State is going to be the first, it's going to come by taking away the running game on early downs and coming after Mallett when it comes to obvious passing downs. If he's going to make big plays (and he is), the Buckeyes also have to be able to make big plays off him by forcing turnovers that set up the offense in good field position. But even on a good night for the defense, if Pryor and Co. aren't up to three solid touchdown drives of their own, there's only so much firepower it can withstand.
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
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