“That’s a non-negotiable”: Josh Pate sets expectations straight for Quinn Ewers & Co. as Texas faces a huge test against Ohio State

According to Josh Pate, Steve Sarkisian's Texas has to do one thing if they want to win the Cotton Bowl against Ohio State: run the ball. According to the football pundit, the Buckeyes present a more threatening defense than the Arizona State Sun Devils and the Longhorns had enough troubles during the Peach Bowl.

During his "Josh Pate's College Football Show" on Tuesday, the pundit had this to say:

"I know Ohio State defensively is world's better than Arizona State, and I know Ohio State is third nationally in sacks and they are sixth nationally in pressure rate. So they may get after you anyway. But if you can't run the ball, it's a wrap. So that's a non-negotiable. Either you gotta be, like, plus four turnovers, and it just makes the box score thrown all out of whack or you've got to run the ball." Quote is at 5:43 of the video below

Admittedly the Texas Longhorns had the hardest time out of all the winners of the quarterfinal round, needing two overtimes to finish off a team against which they were highly favored. The run game against the Sun Devils was indeed something to worry about, with Texas only putting together 53 rushing yards and scoring one rushing touchdown

Texas's Steve Sarkisian on whether a first-round bye is a disadvantage for conference champions

Coach Steve Sarkisian recently gave his opinion regarding the effect that the first-round bye for the conference champions has on teams. Some have argued that rather than help those highly ranked schools, the bye takes out momentum from under their wings. Here's what Sarkisian had to say:

“And so I don’t know if there’s necessarily an advantage or a disadvantage to it that way. I know our guys were chomping at the bit to get back out there and play and compete. But I also know we’re going into our 16th game here coming up this coming week without a real significant rest. We’ve been finding our spots to get some rest and to get healthy, but we didn’t get that massive rest that I think a lot of the other teams do,”

The discussion regarding this topic has become heated in recent days given that the five conference champions went out during the first round and quarterfinal round. However, it seems that Texas' Steve Sarkisian thinks that the high load for schools playing in the first round is a bigger difficulty than losing some momentum.

The Longhorns play Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl on Friday. The game will start at 7:30 p.m. ET at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. It will air on ESPN.