COLUMBUS, Ohio –– The storyline may be recycled, but that doesn’t mean Buckeye fans are any less thrilled to relive it all over again.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: An Ohio State running back explodes for a career-best day to lead the Buckeyes to a win in the Big Ten Championship Game, and follows it up with a similarly monstrous exhibition to fuel an upset over a blue-chip program in the College Football Playoff semifinal.

For Ezekiel Elliott, the story arc continued with his best performance of them all in the 2015 National Championship Game, cementing himself as a Buckeye legend and a full-blown college football icon in the process.

“I definitely remember watching it, it's just a great feeling,” Ohio State senior running back Trey Sermon said Monday. “It's been a lot of great running backs that have come through here, and Zeke is one of the best running backs, and just to be in that conversation, it's an honor.”

Sermon’s final chapter has not yet been written, but with the way he’s trending, the former Oklahoma Sooner may very well check off many of the same boxes that Elliott did at Ohio State before all is said and done.

To this point though, Sermon and Elliott’s historic postseason stretches are simply too similar not to compare, and we won’t shy away from picking the low-hanging fruit.

You may think the parallels begin after the 2014 and 2020 regular seasons had run their course, but actually, the beginning of the pair’s campaigns in each respective year were quite alike as well.

Through three games of Elliott’s sophomore season, he totaled just 141 rushing yards on 27 carries. In the first three games Sermon played in a Buckeye uniform this season, he put up 172 yards on 36 attempts.

For Elliott, and in a typical season, there was still plenty of time to get in a groove well before the postseason. Of the next nine games through Michigan week, Elliott rushed for 100 or more yards on six occasions, and had done so in three of his previous four contests before the Big Ten Championship Game.

For Sermon though, those first three games ended up being half of Ohio State’s entire Big Ten season slate, leading many to speculate why the former near-1,000-yard rusher couldn’t get it going in Columbus.

“The best part about Trey is when all that was going on, he never came into my office, never complained, never said, ‘I need more carries,’ none of that stuff,” head coach Ryan Day said. “Just kept his mouth shut and kept going to work.”

But then, a switch flipped. Sermon averaged 6.7 yards per carry on just nine attempts against Indiana, and broke out for his first 100-yard game of the season on 10 attempts against Michigan State.

Both Sermon and Elliott had shown flashes before their Big Ten title appearances, but few could have expected what was to come next.

Elliott posted 220 rush yards and two touchdowns on 20 carries, and the Buckeyes bested Wisconsin with a monumental 59-0 performance that bolstered them into the first College Football Playoff by the skin of their teeth.

This season, Ohio State needed all of Sermon’s 331 yards –– the most ever in a game by any Buckeye –– to grind out Northwestern by a 22-10 score and secure a spot in the playoff.

Elliott stepped it up a notch in the CFP, this time posting 230 rush yards and two scores against Alabama, including an 85-yarder “through the heart of the south” to cap it off in the fourth quarter.

Six years later, Sermon was instrumental in the Buckeyes’ three-touchdown win over Clemson, chewing up 193 yards on the ground, and 254 from scrimmage overall.

Sermon has 524 rushing yards through the two games, also an Ohio State record, while Elliott had 450. For the comparison to truly be apt though, Sermon will need one more fairytale performance, and likely a win against Alabama next Monday.

“It's really remarkable what he's done,” Day said. “Over 500 yards in two of the biggest games of the year, and he has a chance to go down in Ohio State history as one of the best runs ever if he can have another performance in this game like he did the last two.”

Against Oregon in the season’s ultimate game, Elliott went for 246 and four touchdowns, and while no one can realistically expect such a game from Sermon against the Crimson Tide, the Buckeyes may need everything he can give them.

Legendary status awaits Sermon if he and the Buckeyes can pull it off next week, but it will be no easy task with Nick Saban and Alabama standing in their way.