College football analyst Kirk Herbstreit is buying into the Trey Sermon hype.

After his record-setting performance vs. Northwestern last week, Sermon is starting to get some buzz as Ohio State’s x-factor in the College Football Playoff.

Herbstreit joined that chorus this week on his podcast.

“I think the emergence of Trey Sermon over the last few games, especially in the Big Ten Championship, is vitally important to Ohio State going up against Brent Venables,” Herbstreit said on Monday’s edition of, ‘Herbie, Pollack and Negandhi.’ Brent Venables, the defensive coordinator from Clemson, has great players but he’s very active. Gives you a lot of different looks, and if you’re a one-dimensional attack it makes it really hard.

“And that’s why last year’s game, I mentioned JK Dobbins, he went off. And I think Trey Sermon has got to become that guy. He ran at a different level, a different acceleration and lateral quicks that really we’ve seen all year.”

Dobbins had 221 yards from scrimmage against the Tigers a year ago, and ran the ball at a clip of 9.1 yards per attempt. It will be difficult for Sermon to duplicate that type of performance, but he certainly has a lot of momentum right now.

Sermon had the game of his life in the Big Ten Championship Game. He ran the ball 29 times for 331 yards, breaking Ohio State’s program record for rushing yards in a single game.

Kick off is at 8 p.m. ET on Jan. 1, 2021.