Caleb Downs knew exactly when the Ohio State-Texas game was slipping away.
The former Buckeyes safety said on his podcast, Downs 2 Business, that he watched the Longhorns’ comeback start to take shape before deciding he wanted no part of the finish.
“I was watching the game 'til midway through the third [quarter], and then I could feel they were getting momentum,” Downs said on his podcast, Downs 2 Business, which he hosts with his brother, Josh. “I said, 'I can't watch this right now...
This is gonna keep me up. If I watched the end of the game, it would've kept me up the rest of the night...
Nah, I gotta go to sleep.'”
That reaction landed with plenty of Ohio State fans, who also admitted they bailed on the game or switched over to something else rather than sit through the collapse.
Downs had every reason to care. He was part of the Ohio State teams that beat Texas in 2024 and 2025, and over those two seasons he piled up 10 total tackles, including seven solo stops, against the Longhorns. He also picked off Texas in the teams’ College Football Playoff Semifinal meeting.
And yet the Buckeyes’ 20-point lead vanished anyway.
For Downs, it wasn’t even the first time Texas had ruined a night. He opened his college career at Alabama, and when the Longhorns came to Tuscaloosa in 2023, Texas pulled off the upset. Downs still put together a big game that night with 10 total tackles and a forced fumble, but it wasn’t enough to stop the Horns.
That leaves Downs 2-1 against Texas in his college career, with the undefeated mark coming during his Ohio State run.
The irony of it all didn’t stop there. Downs had his first regular-season NFL game the very next night, as he and the Dallas Cowboys faced the New York Giants. But the weekend ended badly all the same: the Cowboys lost 28-20, and Downs’ teams finished 0-2 across the two days.
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