While everyone knew that the Fiesta Bowl was going to be a coin flip based on the betting odds, not many Ohio State fans thought we would be sitting here on Thursday with the end of the season here and no games left to talk about.

A slew of mistakes ended up playing a major role in Ohio State's 29-23 loss to Clemson in the Fiesta Bowl and causing that abrupt end to the Ohio State season, after reaching the final four and amassing records left and right throughout the season.

Now the long post-mortem begins as the Buckeyes say goodbye to seniors and early draft departures as well as looking at what went wrong and how to fix those issues as the start of the 2020 season is here and the Buckeyes are looking to bounce back after such a disappointing end.

We could go on-and-on here in this introduction talking about all the things that went wrong and how Ohio State still had a shot to win it with less than a minute left before a miscommunication between Justin Fields and Chris Olave led to the game-sealing interception. We could go through each self-inflicted wound in pain-staking detail, but that has already been done here in the days since the loss.

No, we are not done talking about a game that the Buckeyes by all accounts 'coulda, woulda, shoulda' won as the Fiesta Bowl is still fresh on the minds and heavy on the souls of Buckeye Nation. It is the focal point of our latest 3-2-1 presented by our friends at Hague Water Conditioning.

1 - The calls

Look, there is always going to be a human element to officiating these games. 50-50 calls happen all the time and the hope is that you get no less than 50-percent of those types of calls.

Was the Shaun Wade targeting call a killer? Absolutely. Was it targeting? That is up to debate. Wade did make contact with quarterback Trevor Lawrence above the shoulders, but Lawrence, bracing for the hit lowered the contact zone a good six-plus-inches and actually drew (not saying intentionally, as things happen as a matter of reflex) the targeting call.

I have no doubt in my mind that this was not a case of Wade going in for any sort of 'kill shot' or trying to punish the Clemson quarterback. It was an instinctual tackle that by all accounts was not a bad tackle.

A poorly written rule and a very questionable use of replay intervened and Wade was off and the course of the game changed subsequently.

The truth of the matter is that even with all of this campaign to change the mechanics of tackling, there are still no less than a dozen bad tackles per game, at least. On New Year's Day, Twitter was awash with comments on every such tackle that was shown by the television replay angles and nary a single comment arose on most of the telecasts about the intent, the interpretation of the rules or anything of the like came out of those hits.

No, it was a case of replay booth using what was a big play at the time as a stage to review a play that under the normal context of the game would have never been looked at twice.

Putting that aside, because at the end of the day it was a case of Wade being in the wrong place at the wrong time and a poorly written and enforced rule costing the Buckeyes one of their best defenders... that was not the play that Ohio State fans should take issue with.

Unless you were on the moon over the weekend, you have seen the overturned forced fumble and defensive touchdown by the Buckeyes that took seven points off the board in a game that Ohio State ended up ultimately losing by six points.

Jeffrey Okudah comes in and strips the ball from Justyn Ross, who had taken three-plus steps after hauling in a throw from Trevor Lawrence. The ball comes loose, Jordan Fuller picks up the rock and runs it the other way for six points.

Or so we thought.

Look, all scoring plays go to the booth for a good look. We get that.

The 'conference officials' model means that certain leagues, like the SEC, will send it to a command center and have a booth look at it offsite.

The booth looked at it and inexplicably ruled that it was not a catch.

"After the video, instant replay in the stadium as well as back at the video center, they both looked at it slow and fast and they determined when he moved, the ball was becoming loose in his hands and he did not complete the process of the catch," on-field referee Ken Williamson said after the game.

Nobody, save Danny Kanell, a noted ACC cheerleader and, could agree with that explanation.

Time to summarize the facts and move on:

1. The receiver controls the ball and takes 3 steps with control (if you disagree then you can’t be part of a reasonable conversation)

2. The receiver pulls the ball into his body

3. The receiver loses control as his 4th step comes down

4. In real time the player loses the ball quickly

5. The NCAA catch rule is quite subjective

6. The onfield ruling is a catch fumble

7. The fundamental principle of replay is the ruling on the field is correct unless there is indisputable video evidence to reverse.

Thus, regardless of the ruling on the field on this play, replay should have let that ruling stand.

- Terry McAulay @SNFRulesVeteran NFL referee Terry McAulay explains and breaks down the rules behind the biggest plays on @SNFonNBC and @NDonNBC.

"I haven't talked to anybody who thought it was an incomplete pass," Big Ten Supervisor of Officials Bill Carollo, who has more than 30 years of officiating experience, told Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports. "To reverse it, it has to be really obvious."

The only thing that makes this worse is this ridiculous belief that Ohio State has no reason to be upset because the Buckeyes settled for three field goals in the first half instead of being able to punch the ball in for touchdowns and instead of sitting with a 24-point or 28-point lead, Ohio State was sitting with only a 16-point lead (more on this in a minute).

The reality is that replay is broken, it has been broken for some time now and remains broken. This is not just something that is unique to college football as NFL football has a replay issue was well.

How many times have we heard commentators, at all levels, joke that they don't want to even guess what the call will be since they are batting sub-.500 in terms of predicting what replay will call.

Isn't the case of having replay to be 100-percent correct, like all the time? You have the play right there. You are stopping the game. You are supposedly putting these calls in the hands of people who are supposed to be experts in the interpretation and implementation of the rules.

And then we have what we had on Saturday evening. Or in the Rose Bowl. Or in the Citrus Bowl. Or in many bowls as replay just can't get it right.

What is the fix? Do we go to a national governing body for college football with a commissioner of the whole sport? Do we go to a national body of officials? Does the CFP take over replay on its own and take this away from the conference replay officials?

There are a lot of questions and we will have more than enough time to come up with some answers, some that could lead to real change and other that might just add to an already flawed system.

But one thing that is not acceptable under any circumstance is replay getting it wrong. Very wrong. Changing the outcome of a game wrong. Heads need to roll over this one because this was a gross miscarriage of the reach of replay and the only thing worse than that was how rules were misinterpreted and put into play on the biggest of stages.

Not an Ohio State fan and reading this and saying, "Wah... first-world problems"? Just wait. It will happen to you.

2 - Can't settle. but...

Look, Ohio State did itself no favors in this game in the first half when the Buckeyes were just gashing the Tigers up-and-down the field.

At least until Ohio State got to the red zone and Brent Venables' defense clamped down.

The Buckeyes had to settle for three first-half field goals, kicked from the four, five and 16 yard-lines.

Ohio State had played so well and the play calling in those three drives once the Buckeyes had entered the red zone left a lot to be desired.

Look, Clemson is the defending national champion and to expect them to fold in these scenarios is just silly. That was not going to be the case, but the Buckeyes also entered the game as one of the better red zone offenses in the nation and while the Buckeyes came away with points in each of those instances, three was just not going to get it done when everyone knew that Clemson was going to have a counter-attack left in this game.

But this segment is not really about Ohio State's inability to get seven instead of three points. No, it is this false and intellectually dishonest narrative out there that Ohio State got what it deserved in terms of not taking advantage of the situations that it had early in the game.

Yes, the Buckeyes should have been up by more points and honestly a 28-point lead at that point would have likely been too much to overcome. 28-point leads are not often overcome in these types of games, even with a top player like Wade getting ejected and Ohio State's most dangerous offensive weapon of the night getting hurt in JK Dobbins.

But there are people (we will protect the guilty by leaving their names out of this, we still have to see them at media functions and we generally don't make it a habit to call out people directly in the profession) that are saying that Ohio State just needs to move on from any sort of complaints in the game because they "did not take care of business when given the opportunity".

That is really some of the weakest garbage we have ever heard in all of our years covering the sport. This belief that because Ohio State was not able to punch it in early that there is no reason to be upset about having a touchdown taken off the board by a horrific call and even of replay booth overreach?

You are saying that Ohio State sealed its own fate by not scoring touchdowns and then you are okay with Ohio State having what absolutely should have been a touchdown taken off the board?

We are not sure if this is either a case of 1) animus toward Ohio State, 2) a desire to just move the narrative forward and on to a championship game between LSU and Clemson, 3) a gross misunderstanding of how sports work, 4) intellectual dishonesty or 5) some combination of the previous statements.

Even with all of that. Ohio State had a chance to win the game with the ball on the Clemson 23-yard line as the Buckeyes had moved the ball 52-yards in just a little bit more than a minute and really seemed to have momentum on its side until the weight of the mistakes was too much to carry and Fields threw that final interception that sealed the deal.

If Ohio State made 10 mistakes in this game, the Buckeyes could have made eight and still won the game. Clemson fought like a champion and Ohio State looked like the team that had not been on this big stage in some time and hats are off to the away team.

Just don't tell us that "Ohio State had its shot" and because of that everything else that happened was a result of that. That is as sloppy and ill-kept as the Fiesta Bowl field.

3 - Dobbins is an all-timer

Not to be lost in a disappointing game is some great individual performances and one that won't be forgotten any time soon is that of running back JK Dobbins.

Dobbins leaves Ohio State with the first and only 2,000-yard rushing season in Ohio State history and his 2,003-yards ties Wisconsin's Jonathan Taylor's rushing mark this season.

The Ohio State running back did this without the benefit of several second halves this season. The argument could be made that playing those downs could have led to some wear-and-tear that could have limited him down the stretch when he saw his carries rise in a significant manner.

What can't be questioned is just how hard he played down the stretch, rushing for 174 yards in this game, but could have gone for so much more if not for getting banged up during this game (and if you want to stop every play and look for targeting, check out the play he got hurt on, sure looks like targeting to us). Dobbins would come back, leave the game again and them return mostly as a pass catcher and still had another 47 yards as a receiver.

In the world of hindsight, the Buckeyes should have kept throwing to him with more than 40 seconds left in the game and still with a timeout in hand. Clemson was unable to really cover Dobbins in the throw game and while we never know what would have happened in the red zone, a place that Ohio State struggled to get seven from, it certainly would have been a more fitting end than the interception that ended the game.

Dobbins ended the season with four games of 150-plus yards against four of the top run defenses in the nation. Dobbins only had 18 carries in the game against Clemson and averaged 9.7 YPC. Yes, there will be the question about 'what if' when Dobbins was pulled down from behind on his second long run of the evening, but anyone who uses that as a lasting image of what Dobbins was this season is incredibly short-sighted or was just never really a fan of Dobbins.

He leaves (as he has already declared for the NFL) as one of the all-time great rushers in Ohio State history and is No. 2 in all-time yardage behind two-time Heisman winner Archie Griffin.

Not getting a national title during his three-year run will always be something that Dobbins will lament, but fans witnessed a special season out of the La Grange (Texas) runner.

1 - What was up with that field?

Both teams had to play on it.

Just wanted to throw that out there. This is not a case of saying that the shape of the field only hurt Ohio State. Because on Dobbins' long touchdown run, a Clemson defender ate it and that sprung the Ohio State running back to the end zone.

But the Fiesta Bowl has to do something about this if it wants to be in the real rotation for the College Football Playoff.

Locals told us in Phoenix that it rains about 14 days a year and we were there for about half of them. The field at State Farm Stadium is natural grass and it sits outside for most of the year to get the sun, wind and rain of the elements to grow.

What happens when you leave the field outside (moving it inside is not really an option) during the rain? It gets wet.

What happens when you move it inside and keep the roof closed once it is in position for the game? It remains wet.

Before the game we noticed how slick the track was, noticed that there were some bare patches on the sidelines and were later told by people who were on the field as photographers that the field was painted green for aesthetics and were complaining about getting the paint all over themselves.

Look, we know that a full NFL schedule is played on this field as well with the Arizona Cardinals calling the building home. But we also know that many NFL'ers do not like that surface and have called it one of the worst in the NFL.

It is not on us to demand that Arizona look into installing an artificial surface and give up on this whole idea of keeping natural grass in an indoor space. But is anyone actually benefitting from this decision or is it a vanity call?

2 - Will he or won't he?

Dobbins? Gone.

Okudah? Gone.

Young? Gone (well, not announced as of the time we are writing this, but let's get real).

Wade? To be determined.

Shaun Wade is having a press conference in Jacksonville (Fla.) this weekend to make his intentions known.

Cardale Jones had a presser at home to announce he is coming back. Everyone felt that the decision to not do it on campus was a tell-tale sign that he was gone, and then he came back.

Cardale is one of the best, and nobody should ever pretend to know what Jones is thinking.

Wade on the other hand?

The thought of doing it at home would leave one to believe he is gone. The fact that he is inviting Ohio State media to attend the event however flies in the face of that. Why would you having Columbus (Ohio) media come all the way down there only to say you are leaving?

Where does Wade project? That is a big question as many mocks don't have him on the board yet as an unknown status. He certainly has sky-high stock but the argument could be made that another year with the Buckeyes could cement Wade as a potential first-half of the first round type of pick.

It might be hard to turn down the money now however and a great NFL Scouting Combine/Ohio State Pro Day could lock Wade in the first round, this year.

We will just all have to wait until Saturday to find out what he is thinking and find out his decision together.

Not to get lost in all of the talk about the Fiesta Bowl and the NFL declarations is the fact that both the Under Armour All-America Game and the All-American Bowl are both in full-swing right now in Florida and Texas, respectively.

Ohio State's signees are performing very well by all accounts as our very own Marc Givler is in San Antonio anchoring our coverage for that game while the national team is in go-mode in Florida for the other game.

The Buckeyes already sitting with nine members of the Rivals100 and have two five-stars with a couple of players right on the cusp of getting that 5th star.

There is one final rankings period left that comes out after the all-star games are in the books and while we have not talked to anyone directly who has a say in what the rankings are going to look like, we are expecting some good news one way or the other in those final rankings.

Keep it locked in here for those final updates before National Signing Day in February.