Ohio State wasted no time in regaining momentum at the end of the first half of Friday night's Cotton Bowl against Texas.

The Longhorns put together an impressive two-minute drill as the second quarter wound down, with quarterback Quinn Ewers & Co. driving 59 yards in seven plays, taking just 1:23 off the clock. An 18-yard touchdown pass to Jaydon Blue out of the backfield capped the drive and tied the first-half slugfest at 7–7.

It only lasted a few seconds of game time.

On the very next play from scrimmage, quarterback Will Howard found TreVeyon Henderson wide open on a screen with a caravan of Buckeyes in front of him. A couple of key blocks sprung the explosive running back for a 75-yard touchdown to take back the lead before halftime.

That play was nearly out of the gameplan, as the team hadn't been running many of these kinds of screens despite dedicating practice time to them. Howard was asked about the play's impact during the postgame press conference, and coach Ryan Day revealed that the coaching staff had almost scrapped the "screen drill" entirely from practice.

"I mean I don’t think anyone thought that that was going for 75 yards," said Howard. "That was trying to set something up. That was a drive-starter. That was a huge play for us, a huge swing. We talk about winning the middle eight all the time. That was big."

"We were laughing a little bit in the locker room, having some fun with it, because we do screen drill," said Day. "Sometimes these guys are like ‘Are we ever going to call a screen?’ I actually said to the coaches, ‘We’ve gotta stop doing screen drill because we don’t call any dang screens.’ Sure enough, it went the whole distance. 75, first play."

On a day where Ohio State's dynamic rushing attack only managed 81 yards on 24 carries, Day and offensive coordinator Chip Kelly found the perfect moment to break out a little-used play and get one of their most explosive players the ball in space.

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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Ohio State Nearly Stopped Practicing Play That Went for Huge TD.