PASADENA, Calif. — Far from the celebratory fray, longtime Ohio State strength coach Mickey Marotti stood back and watched the Rose Bowl trophy ceremony in the confetti-strewn aftermath of Ohio State’s blowout win over Oregon.

Since arriving at the school in 2012, Marotti has developed the reputation for being the program’s persistent and no-nonsense truth teller. So when prodded postgame to encapsulate Ohio State’s remarkable U-turn since the regular-season-ending loss to Michigan, Marotti shrugged his shoulders and laid bare the reality of necessity.

“We had no choice,” Marotti said. “We had to respond.”

From rock bottom to a rocket ship that has distinguished itself as the College Football Playoff favorite, Ohio State’s extreme makeover comes with equal parts immediacy and dominance.

In a second life afforded to it by the 12-team playoff, Ohio State has pressed the pedal to the floor. On Friday, the Buckeyes play No. 5 Texas in a CFP semifinal at the Goodyear Cotton Bowl, and the questions have shifted from the depths of a rivalry loss to whether they need to guard against overconfidence in the wake of back-to-back virtuoso performances.

In the first two rounds of the playoff, Ohio State ragdolled both Oregon and Tennessee, fulfilling the promise of what scouts view as the country’s most talented roster and exceeding the expectations that weighed heavy on the program.

In the giddy locker room at the Rose Bowl, the win came with a feel-good March Madness vibe.

“The biggest thing he talks about all the time is, ‘Do we get to spend another week together?'” Ohio State offensive coordinator Chip Kelly said of coach Ryan Day. “And that’s our plan. So hopefully we can continue to do that.”

It’s a drastically different feel than the dark days after a 13-10 loss to rival Michigan at the end of the regular season.

“People on the team getting death threats, our head coach getting cussed out, people saying he should never come to Ohio again,” star wide receiver Emeka Egbuka said. “All this type of stuff. And I’m sure [now] when you scroll Twitter, Instagram, everyone’s going to be singing our phrases.”

After bottoming out, Ohio State has found an energy and edge, as quarterback Will Howard has identified the Buckeyes as “playing angry.” In the postseason, Howard has eliminated punitive mistakes and played with numbing efficiency, a patchwork offensive line has found an identity and a retooled defense has been menacing.

Ohio State has found itself in a place many expected at the start of this season, just not how they expected it to get there.

“I think we have the ability, we have the talent to go all the way,” fifth-year tight end Gee Scott Jr. said, “and I think the only person that’s going to get in the way of where we want to go is ourselves.”

How did Ohio State transform into the best version of itself? Here’s some scenes from around the Rose Bowl that tell the story.

AS MAROTTI POINTED up to the players celebrating on the Rose Bowl stage, he took particular delight in the veteran Buckeyes who had endured to appreciate the moment.

Though much has been made of Ohio State’s glitzy portal additions and the undeniable resplendence of freshman receiver Jeremiah Smith, the guts of this Ohio State team is found in the veteran core.

In a transient era of college football, it’s a rare veteran collection of fourth- and fifth-year players who have NFL upside. A big crew of Buckeyes put off the NFL draft to come back, and they’ve honed in on getting the ending right.

Defensive end Jack Sawyer, defensive end JT Tuimoloau, tailback TreVeyon Henderson, defensive tackle Tyleik Williams, defensive tackle Ty Hamilton, offensive lineman Donovan Jackson, Egbuka and cornerback Denzel Burke all could have been drafted last year. Linebacker Cody Simon has been the rare Ohio State late-career breakout star.

They were among the players most vocal in a team meeting after the Michigan game about not letting losing to Michigan be the team’s legacy.

“It was raw,” injured center Seth McLaughlin, a transfer from Alabama, told ESPN. “It’s what needed to happen. I think the dominance the past two weeks is directly correlated to how we talked and after that loss to Michigan and how we came together, and it’s been fun to watch and fun to be around.”

Scott didn’t mince words on the meeting — “There was conflict,” he said. But after everything got “hashed out,” he recalls an enduring moment.

“We had all hundred guys, a hundred-plus some guys, gathered together in arms,” Scott told ESPN. “We put our arms around each other, and we all prayed together and we said, ‘We want to fight to live another day with this team.’ And at that moment, I felt like I just knew that there was something special about this team, and we weren’t going to let another team get in the way of this.”

All the expectations and noise have been replaced by a simple goal inside the walls of the Ohio State building — winning for another week together: “There’s kind of an intangible thing that you can’t describe between the chemistry that we have on this team, and we just really don’t want it to end,” Egbuka said. “These are some of my best friends in the world, and obviously no matter what we do, no matter if we keep winning, it’s going to come to an end soon. So we’re just taking in all the moments and just trying to push for one more game to spend with each other.”

THERE ARE PARALLELS in this Ohio State run to the remarkable turnaround of the Virginia men’s basketball team in 2019. The Cavaliers’ national championship that season followed an NCAA tournament loss in the first round the year before, when they became the first No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 16.

The analogy is a bit clunky, as four consecutive losses to Michigan isn’t the same as Virginia basketball’s historic loss to UMBC. And Virginia stewed for a year, whereas Ohio State simmered for nearly a month.

But there are similarities. Both coaches endured unusually low depths, big-picture questions about their future that didn’t reflect their overall body of work and torrents of criticism that didn’t align with their high winning percentages.

Day and the Buckeyes still need to finish the job, of course, as Texas looms in the immediate future. Another big-brand juggernaut in Penn State or Notre Dame awaits the winner. But it’s clear the narrative around Day has transitioned to something more aligned with a coach who has won 87% of his games — a 68-10 career record — after Ohio State maximized its vast potential in blowouts of Tennessee and Oregon.

First-year Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork has been consistently vocal in his support of Day. His winning percentage, the roster carnage that comes with a head coaching change and a buyout of nearly $36 million has always made a firing more talk-show fodder than reality. But that conversation around Day’s future has essentially disappeared.

“It’s total gratification to see him have his success, to see him rebound like he’s rebounded,” former Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith told ESPN outside the locker room at the Rose Bowl. “Just to see him grow. Sure, I’m happy for his family, happy for him. But the growth thing is huge. His transition to let Chip Kelly call the plays in a game was major. And then watching him transition on the sideline.

“I’m just so happy for him. And I know their mission is not complete. I know it. I can tell this team is on a mission, and I think it’s going to be phenomenal.”

Day’s measured persona has helped weather the storm — he noted he was down but never strayed off-message about the opportunity that awaited Ohio State.

“He’s a pro,” Marotti said. “He’s the coach at the Ohio State University. He knows the expectations. He knows what comes with the job, and he never wavered and the team never wavered.”

OHIO STATE’S OFFENSIVE line was bullied in the Michigan game by the Wolverines’ superior defensive front. And the entire operation was undermined by stubborn playcalling that veered toward inexplicable.

In the wake of that game, guard Tegra Tshabola recalled offensive line coach Justin Frye telling the linemen: “We’re all we’ve got, but we’re all we need.”

Tshabola added: “We kind of felt like a lot of people have turned on us … and in that type of moment, we could do two things. We can either keep spreading apart as a team or come together even closer, bond together and create something really special.”

Ohio State’s dominance against the high-end defensive lines of Tennessee and Oregon has been the biggest surprise of its run. After averaging 3.0 yards per carry against Michigan, the Buckeyes carried for 4.7 yards per carry and four touchdowns against Tennessee and 5.8 yards and two touchdowns against Oregon.

This has been aided significantly by Kelly’s playcalling. He has kept defenses on their heels with misdirection, forcing opponents to guard the entire width of the 53⅓ yards with perimeter runs and perimeter throws. Feeding Smith a steady diet of downfield opportunities has certainly proved wise.

There has been a roll call of those who’ve excelled in the wake of a flurry of injuries, including season-enders to left tackle Josh Simmons, a projected first-round pick, and McLaughlin, who won the Remington Award for the country’s top center.

Ohio State has shuffled through 24 offensive line combinations this season, per ESPN Research. Jackson, a guard and top-50 draft prospect, has settled in at left tackle, a selfless move that has been the bedrock of the offensive line’s run.

“We’re down to eighth and ninth guys in the room, and any other college football team if that happens, your season’s done,” McLaughlin said. “And for the way we had a lot of guys step up that were not expected to ever play this season at the beginning of the year, and they’re playing really well, and I think that’s a testament to how hard those guys worked. And Coach Frye, I think Coach Frye is a hell of a coach, the best in the business.”

There are three offensive guards splitting snaps — Tshabola, Austin Siereveld and Luke Montgomery — an unconventional tactic that has worked in keeping everyone fresh. Tshabola has rebounded from a dismal outing against Michigan. Montgomery entered the season as OSU’s ninth offensive lineman and has given the line an energy and an edge. Right tackle Josh Fryar held his own on the right flank.

Scott credited the line’s “utmost resilience” in rebounding.

“From that moment forward, I could just see the look in their eye,” Scott said. “They just couldn’t wait to get back, and they couldn’t wait for redemption. And I’m just so proud of them for staying in the fight this season, as we may lose some fights here and there, but our goal is to win the war.”

OHIO STATE DEFENSIVE coordinator Jim Knowles profiles more as a wise sage than a pound-the-locker motivator. He’s a Cornell graduate who dabbles in yoga and worked in finance in downtown Boston for a bit before beginning his coaching career.

After the Buckeyes’ Oct. 12 loss to Oregon, much was made of Ohio State overhauling its defense. Knowles chuckled a bit and looked at it more analytically.

“When you have problems, you fix them,” he said. “I think that’s just the job of a coach. I don’t feel like any big change. I feel like, OK, well, some issues showed up, we need to fix it, and that’s my job, but already with things we had in the system.”

Well, he did his job well in fixing things from the first Oregon game to the second. As a team, Ohio State has blitzed nearly 20% more since the first six games. That included a market correction of blitzing 51% of the time against Northwestern and 61% of the time against Purdue, compared to 22% the first six games.

The biggest compliment to the effectiveness of Knowles’ defense against Oregon in the Rose Bowl comes from the fact that it blitzed, per ESPN Research, the lowest amount of any game this season. The Buckeyes blitzed just three total times, bringing only four rushers, yet were able to pressure Ducks quarterback Dillon Gabriel on 51% of his snaps. (That was up from 33% in the first matchup, when they blitzed nine times).

Considering the lower blitz numbers, the most glaring before-and-after statistic came from the eight sacks and 13 tackles for loss, compared to zero sacks and two tackles for loss in the first matchup. The pressure plan, along with more coverage disguises and defensive front diversity, has revved up Ohio State’s effectiveness.

A coach who studied the game attributed the Buckeyes’ sack surge to coverage, as Oregon kept trying to push the ball down the field as it fell behind. Ohio State kept receivers blanketed.

Simon had 11 tackles, 3 TFLs and 2 sacks in the Rose Bowl. Defensive ends Sawyer and Tuimoloau are playing the best ball of their careers, combining for eight sacks in the CFP. Sawyer had three tipped passes against Oregon, an astonishing number for a defensive lineman.

The Texas offensive line will be the best unit on paper the Buckeyes have faced this season. Can they continue their run of havoc?