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COLUMBUS, Ohio — Following what he described as a "sledgehammer game" with another one around the corner, Urban Meyer sat at his Sugar Bowl postgame press conference smiling and laughing, displaying a jovial nature not typically seen since he arrived at Ohio State three years ago.

"Oregon won by 40?" Meyer asked of the Buckeyes' next opponent, after beating Alabama 42-35 in their battle on the Bayou. "Whew, I gotta go. We gotta go get ready."

Meyer's words indicated fear, but his body language conveyed the confidence of a man who has already pulled off the most impressive coaching job in college football history. With a starting lineup half comprised of freshmen and sophomores and down to its third option at quarterback on the season, Ohio State will play for college football's national championship next Monday after advancing in the sport's first playoff.

"We are good enough," Meyer said. "The future is bright at Ohio State."

So is the present, evidenced by the fact that the Buckeyes will be playing for their eighth national title in program history when they take the field at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on Jan. 12. Regardless of the outcome at "Jerry World," it would have been nearly impossible to foresee Ohio State having this opportunity in front of it four months ago, when star quarterback Braxton Miller went down with a torn labrum in his throwing shoulder two weeks prior to the start of the season.

At the time, Buckeye players and coaches said the right things, about how they were carrying a "next man up" mentality and weren't ready to punt on the 2014 campaign. Still, the atmosphere inside of the Woody Hayes Athletic Center felt more like a funeral than it did anything else, as the nation's fifth-ranked team came to grips with altered expectations for the upcoming season.

"We're not naive to the situation," Buckeyes senior tight end Jeff Heuerman said. "We understand what happened and what we lost."

Ohio State seemed to have lost a lot in the second week of the season, when the Buckeyes suffered a damaging loss to Virginia Tech in Columbus. Ohio State's playoff hopes seemed over before Big Ten play had even started, as it dropped to as low as 23rd in the AP Top 25.

With a roster that included 11 combined freshmen and sophomore starters on offense and defense, Ohio State's season faced no shortage of uncertainty as the Buckeyes headed into the heart of their 2014 slate.

"We just gotta get a lot better," Meyer said following his team's defeat at the hands of the Hokies.

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Ohio State seemed to do just that, reeling off four consecutive blowout victories over Kent State, Cincinnati, Maryland and Rutgers. It followed up a double-overtime win at Penn State with a rout of Illinois, landing the Buckeyes at 14th in the playoff rankings as the committee questioned a perceived lack of quality wins on Ohio State's resume.

One week later, the Buckeyes would re-legitimize their case for a playoff spot, with a 49-37 win over eighth-ranked Michigan State in East Lansing. "A young team grew up tonight," Meyer said.

At that point, Ohio State appeared to be hitting on all cylinders, with J.T. Barrett emerging as an unlikely Heisman Trophy candidate. The redshirt freshman quarterback would go on to break the Big Ten's single-season record for touchdowns (45) as the Buckeyes closed out the regular season on a 10-game winning streak.

But as Ohio State prepared to head to Indianapolis for the Big Ten title game with a spot in the College Football Playoff potentially on the line, one last unforeseen obstacle stood in the Buckeyes' way.

With Barrett fracturing his ankle in Ohio State's regular-season finale win over Michigan, the Buckeyes' playoff hopes would rest in the hands of their third quarterback option of the season in Cardale Jones. And with OSU ranked fifth and on the outside looking in at the four-team playoff, nothing less than a convincing victory over Wisconsin and its second-ranked defense would seem to be enough.

Much to the shock of the world—maybe even Meyer included—Jones would provide that and then some, throwing for 257 yards and three touchdowns in the Buckeyes' 59-0 beatdown of the Badgers. That was good enough to make Ohio State the nation's fourth-best team in the eyes of the playoff committee, advancing the Buckeyes to a Sugar Bowl semifinal against top-ranked Alabama.

"If you asked me a year ago or six months ago," Meyer responded when asked how comfortable he was with Jones as his starting quarterback against the Crimson Tide, "I would have looked at you like you've got six heads. But it's a much different story right now."

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Jones, however, looked the part of third-string quarterback early on in the Sugar Bowl, as the Buckeyes fell down 21-6 in the semifinal's opening half.

But even if Ohio State's season had ended there, with a loss to Alabama, it still would have gone down as one of the great coaching jobs in college football history. Meyer had taken one of his youngest rosters ever and third choice at quarterback to the playoff, which is more than any rational Buckeye fan could have asked for prior to the start of the season.

And yet the two-time national champion head coach wasn't quite done.

Making in-game adjustments that included using Jones more as a ball-carrier and pulling a well-timed trick play out of his sleeve, the Buckeyes mounted an unlikely comeback, reeling off 28 straight points before holding on for the 42-35 win. Despite all the adversity that it had faced from the start of the season until the end of the Sugar Bowl, The Ohio State University will be playing for the national championship, concluding a historic season for college football.

"This is one of the great team wins we've been a part of," Meyer said. "We didn't play well at times, but we found a way to win."

That's been the story all season for the Buckeyes, who have managed to make good on the typically cliche "next man up" attitude. Every year there are examples of coaches doing more with less—just as Meyer did when he led Utah to an undefeated season in 2004 and Ohio State to one in 2012—but never has a coach in a similar circumstance done more than Meyer has this season, as the Buckeyes find themselves on the verge of winning the sport's first playoff.

But the Buckeyes have another challenge ahead against an Oregon team that just beat Florida State 59-20. After all, Meyer was ready to leave his postgame press conference early and start preparing for the Ducks.

But after all he and his team have already accomplished this season, there's a reason he'll do so with no shortage of confidence.

Ben Axelrod is Bleacher Report's Ohio State Lead Writer. You can follow him on Twitter @BenAxelrod. Unless noted otherwise, all quotes obtained firsthand. All statistics courtesy of cfbstats.com and recruiting information courtesy of 247Sports.