WHAT’S CAUSING ALL THIS? By MITCH LUCAS | Questions, questions, questions before tonight’s Goodyear Cotton Bowl

So, there are about, oh, 5 or so stories swirling around the 89^th Goodyear Cotton Bowl in Arlington, Texas on Friday night, with the Texas Longhorns facing the Ohio State Buckeyes.

• The weather. The Dallas /Fort Worth / Metroplex area got over seven inches of snow on Thursday and early Friday morning. A lot of it is melting off. But traffic conditions are ridiculous, because, quite frankly, there are idiots who don’t know you can’t drive on snow and ice like you drive when it’s a sunny Texas day. And that factoid, combined with the likes of black ice, makes it dangerous conditions. And air travelers don’t escape the mess, either: DFW International Airport pretty much shut down for a while on Thursday, because they had to, and that complicates matters even further. A lot of this is supposed to be gone by the time the game actually kicks off at 7:30 p.m. Eastern / 6:30 Central. But wow.
• Ryan Day. The Ohio State head coach and his team have bounced back from an awful-looking loss to Michigan in the regular season finale, and have won two straight since then in back-to-back blowouts over Tennessee and Oregon – you know, the No. 1 seed for this whole College Football Playoff shindig. But Day was under heavy scrutiny after dropping a HOME GAME to a talent-depleted Michigan team that was not anywhere NEAR the ballpark of last year’s national title team. The good folks of Ohio put a target squarely on Day’s back – but the coach answered. Could a loss in Texas – to Texas – on Friday night put the target back on? Day is in his sixth season as head coach after replacing Urban Meyer. His overall record at Ohio State is something like Nick Saban would be happy of: 68-10. And the Buckeyes haven’t lost more than two games under Day in a single season – ever. But his record against Michigan is 1-5; he hasn’t won a game against the Buckeyes since that first season. By the way: since Ryan Day became coach at Ohio State, the Buckeyes have only beaten one team from the Southeastern Conference (Tennessee, about two weeks ago). Texas is an SEC team. Just sayin’.

• Steve Sarkisian. ESPN NFL insider Adam Schefter reported this week (on a couple of occasions, actually, including the network’s morning show, “Get Up”) that NFL teams are/will reach out to Sarkisian following his season’s closure, whether that’s Friday night or after the national championship game next week. Sark has what we at TFB call “momentary” NFL experience – he was the offensive coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons in 2017 and 2018. And he seems to have things well in hand in Austin, with a talent-rich roster and a normally hard-to-please booster jetset happy with the job he’s doing. Sark signed a four-year extension with UT and makes about $10.3 million a year on a contract that doesn’t expire until 2030. Would Sarkisian even entertain offers to go back to “the League,” whether it be loss or title win?

• The Quinn Ewers / Arch Manning conundrum. Sark may have everything coming up roses, sunshine and rainbows, including a young roster that’s one of the nation’s best. But what happens with his quarterback room after this season? Ewers is the Longhorns’ starting quarterback and he’s helped lead them “back.” Texas reached the CFP last year under Ewers’ play, and he’s got 27 wins as a starter. This year, he’s passed for 3,189 yards, 29 touchdowns and 11 interceptions, even having missed some time with injuries. Still, the rumor mill (which is kind of like a sawmill; it never really stops) has had both Ewers AND Manning leaving Austin at some point along the course of this season; Ewers, “they say,” will either be gone to the NFL Draft or will transfer for one last year of eligibility and NIL money, because he knows Manning is about to be the starter, or, “they” say that Manning – tired of waiting his turn – won’t want to do it again next year, and will enter the transfer portal and be off to greener pastures. For his part, Manning has tried to avoid the talk. In answering questions prior to the Peach Bowl against Arizona State, Manning said he didn’t know all that much about the transfer portal, and wasn’t going to be transferring. Ewers has avoided the topic entirely, smartly saying he was focused on the Longhorns this season and getting them to a national championship. There was even ANOTHER rumor that an unnamed-in-the-public university has offered Ewers (insert massive dollar figure) to leave Austin and transfer to their own program. Will he stay? Will Manning stay? Will one of them be gone, or will they both be back in the ‘Horns’ quarterback room next year?

• Ewers / Ohio State. Ewers, a former Texas high school quarterback, began his career at none other than Ohio State, a team he faces tonight. One of the members of that team that will do his best to stop Ewers from succeeding is none other than linebacker Jack Sawyer, probably the Buckeyes’ best front-seven player. Oh, and Ewers’ former OSU roommate.
• Did we mention a berth in the national championship game is on the line? 😊 The winner of tonight’s Goodyear Cotton Bowl will advance to the College Football Playoff National Championship, to be played Jan. 20 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta? Notre Dame (13-1) punched its ticket to the game with a 27-24 nail-biting win Thursday night at the Capitol One Orange Bowl in Miami. Texas hasn’t played for a national title since Jan. 2010, a loss to Alabama (Saban’s first in Tuscaloosa), to cap the 2009 season. And the ‘Horns haven’t won a national championship since the classic Rose Bowl win over Southern Cal to finish the 2006 season. Ohio State’s last national championship game appearance came against Alabama, as well, back in Jan. 2021, to finish the 2020 season, and they haven’t won a title since Meyer’s 2014 team. Either the Longhorns or the Buckeyes are Notre Dame’s next opponent. At about 11 p.m. North Texas time tonight, all of these things won’t matter nearly as much, as the confetti hits the turf at AT&T Stadium.