The Ohio State Buckeyes came into Saturday's College Football Playoff first round matchup with the Tennessee Volunteers with  more to prove than any other team playing over the weekend. After an upset loss at home to their bitter rival the Michigan Wolverines in their regular season finale, Ohio State missed out on an opportunity to play for a Big Ten title and went into the CFP with no shortage of doubters.

Consider former running back turned college football analyst Damien Harris one of those doubters.

On Saturday ahead of kickoff at Ohio Stadium, Harris proclaimed that the Buckeyes “didn't have a quarterback” who could get the ball to their talented receivers, Jeremiah Smith and Emeka Egbuka. He even went as far as saying, “when the lights are the brightest, Will Howard crawls into his shell and he does not deliver.”

However, after Saturday night's destruction of the Tennessee Volunteers — a 42-17 win in which Howard completed 24 of 29 pass attempts and threw for 311 yards and 2 touchdowns — Harris had to backtrack his take on the former Kansas State transfer, while also acknowledging that the Buckeyes National Championship hopes are very much alive.

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The former Alabama Crimson Tide running back knows a thing or two about the look of a National Championship caliber team. All four years he played at Alabama, the Tide made the National Championship Game, winning a pair of titles in 2015 and 2017. Ohio State is looking for their first title in a decade, but in order to get there, they'll need to get through an opponent they lost earlier in the season to… the undefeated Oregon Ducks.

Despite Oregon's standing as the top seed in the College Football Playoff, the Buckeyes are actually favored at the moment in a January 1st showdown in the Rose Bowl.