Dear Buckeye Nation,

You want to fire Ryan Day now?

We have asked you that question twice since that regular season-ending loss to Michigan. Y’all wanted him erased from the program then … but how about now – with your beloved Buckeyes on the precipice of a national freaking championship?

How does it feel, Buckeye Nation, to be so deliriously happy yet so ridiculously wrong at the same time? Back on Nov. 30, you were ready to deploy the entirety of Greater Columbus Realtors Association to help Day and his family pack their bags. Now, 51 days later, you’re packing for Atlanta and the national championship game.

You want to fire Ryan Day now? And is there anyone left who wants to vilify Jack Sawyer for being so full of scarlet and grey that he couldn’t contain it after losing to the Wolverines – but let it flow Friday night in one of the most exciting moments in College Football Playoff history?

Ohio State’s stunning storybook season took yet another magical step forward on the Cotton Bowl stage Friday night, as the Buckeyes delivered a dramatic 28-14 victory over Texas in the College Football Playoff semifinal. At the absolute middle of it all was the coach that folks wanted gone and the kid who grew up hearing the echoes before deciding to create one for himself.

How can you possibly deny that this is Ohio State’s moment after what happened in the waning moments of the Cotton Bowl? Facing a cagey Texas offense devised by mastermind Steve Sarkisian, the Buckeyes bent and bent and bent before springing back in epic fashion.

At the nexus of it Friday night was Sawyer, running free down the sideline with the football tucked under his arm. The senior defensive end – a massive emotional and physical force all season for Ohio State – was suddenly an 8-year-old kid winning a pickup game in the backyard all over again as he passed sheer pandemonium on his team’s sideline en route to the end zone.

It was Sawyer, if you recall, who practically fought an entire college football team by himself. On that chilly Nov. 30 afternoon in Columbus, Michigan tried to celebrate yet another victory over its arch-rival at Ohio Stadium – complete with planting an oversized Block M flag at midfield.

Sawyer, the player who has been so full of Ohio State literally his entire life, wasn’t having that: He ripped the flag away from the Wolverines and came about an inch from throwing hands with the entirety of That Team Up North.

Flash forward to Friday night, and it was Sawyer who delivered the dagger against the Longhorns – and his former roommate Quinn Ewers — with an astonishing strip-sack/scoop-and-score touchdown to vault Ohio State into the CFP title game against Notre Dame.

“I can’t say enough about Jack Sawyer. He a guy who loves being a Buckeye and loves his teammates,” Day said after the game. “He does everything we ask him to do as a captain, and everything we could possibly ask for in a captain.

“To make a play like that in that moment. … We talked before the game that if you want to leave a legacy behind, you become a legend. He just became a legend at Ohio State.”

It felt like Ohio State’s night well before Sawyer’s game-clinching play, especially when the Buckeyes answered a Texas touchdown late in the first half with a spectacularly well-designed screen pass off from Will Howard to TreVeyon Henderson in the right flat – a burner play that morphed into a 75-yard lightning bolt of a touchdown and a 14-7 lead.

And with the game tied at 14 and under 10 minutes to go, Day once again showed why he should have won everyone’s national coach of the year award – rolling the dice on a 4th-and-2 at the Texas 34. After a Longhorns timeout, Day’s offense dialed up an 18-yard quarterback power run that would have been a touchdown had not the JerryWorld turf monster not reached up and grabbed Howard in the open field.

That Howard scamper kept the drive alive, though, and the Buckeyes cashed in 3 plays later when Quinshon Judkins stormed in from the 1 to cap a statement-making 13-play, 88-yard drive that chewed up 7:02 of valuable game clock.

And the end, well, the end was pure Buckeyes kismet. Texas motored right back down the field and appeared to be on the doorstep of a tying score – with consecutive pass interference penalties in the end zone putting the ball at the OSU 1. But running back Jerrick Gibson got stood up at the goal line for no gain, running back Quintrevion Wisner was hauled down for a loss of 7 and Sawyer deflected a Howard pass at the line of scrimmage to set up an all-or-nothing 4th down.

Cue Sawyer. Again.

Ewers never saw his former Ohio State roommate coming off his blind side, and Sawyer knocked the ball out of Ewers’ right hand just as Ewers cocked to throw. The ball bounced cleanly up off the artificial turf and into Sawyer’s waiting arms – those same arms that ripped up the ill-fated Michigan flag after that crushing Nov. 20 loss – for the 83-yard scoop-and-score dagger.

“It just means everything to me…,” said Sawyer, grinning ear to ear trying to take in the enormity of the moment. “I kind of blacked out on the run there. I saw the ball pop out right to me, and I was just thinking about staying on my feet with all that green grass in front of me.”

How do you like Ryan Day now, Ohio State? And how can you possibly deny that the Buckeyes are destined for glory when you see Jack Sawyer rumbling free in the open field like a kid in the playground?