Eddie McGuire watches son Joe’s Ohio State Buckeyes advance to Cotton Bowl

The AFL broadcaster’s son has helped kick his US college football team a step closer to a National Championship.

Eddie McGuire is in the US to “ride the wave” after his son Joe’s Ohio State Buckeyes won through to the Cotton Bowl.

The Buckeyes destroyed the no. 1 side Oregon Ducks on Thursday to win the Rose Bowl in Pasadena and advance to the College Football Playoff Semi finals.

The Buckeyes will now face the Texas Longhorns for a spot in the National Championship game in Atlanta.

McGuire and wife Carla were in the crowd of over 90,000 for the match.

Joe made his debut as a punter at the start of September and has retained his position in a competitive side.

“It is huge,” McGuire said on Sam Newman’s the You Cannot be Serious podcast on Wednesday.

The crowd at the Rose Bowl.

“When you talk to people, a lot of people in Australia, granted there’s a lot now who follow the college football and understand it, but they think it’s like, you know, Old Xavs versus old Geelong or something like that, or Old Melburnians versus Collegians in the VAFA. When in fact, I was at the last three games I’ve seen over here, watching my son play for the Ohio State, the attendances have been 106, 105, and 102 – and 102,000 was being played in minus 12 degrees at eight o’clock on a Saturday night.

“And the college had, the university was closed and people had gone home for Christmas. Still 102,000 people in there.

Joe McGuire celebrates a field goal during the second quarter against the Oregon Ducks during the Rose Bowl Game. Picture: Getty Images

“And it was absolutely rocking the place. And thankfully for Ohio State, they had a great win over Tennessee.”

McGuire gave an insight into Joe’s journey, and revealed they’d even introduced the Peter Daicos dribble to their kicking armoury.

“Joe’s journey has gone from being a skinny kid in Melbourne,” McGuire said. “A lot of people saw him growing up sitting next to me at the footy watching the Pies playing and during Covid, he was like everybody. He was pretty flat.

“He was at university. These things had changed and he wanted to be a professional sportsman. He copped a couple of concussions when he played at first 18 level at Melbourne Grammar.

“He was always a beautiful kick and he decided he’d have a go pro kick, which is the local kicking factory, if you like, in Australia. Nathan Chapman and his team got him in. He had a natural ability to be able to kick the ball.

Joe McGuire with Ohio Quarter back Will Howard and the Rose Bowl Trophy.

“They refined it and then over the next two years, he put on 25 kilos of muscle. He got up every morning at 4.35 in the morning to train and then he’d do his kicking and he’d do his university. And eventually, he was on a bit of a road show with the other Australian boys going around the various colleges and he got picked up.”

McGuire said Joe is put through a stringent testing regime.

“Every day he goes to training, they have to urinate and there is a light that goes on to say whether you’re hydrated enough and you have to stand there until you’re hydrated enough to be able to go to training because they’ve got levels that suggest that if you’re not hydrated enough, you’re more susceptible to muscle injury,” McGuire said.

Joe McGuire punts the ball during the first quarter against the Oregon Ducks during the Rose Bowl. Picture: Getty Images

“You are weighing your weight out because they want you to be the same weight on the way out to eat up before you go home. You turn up here, you stand there, you kick it there, you run there, you hit there, you do this and that’s what it is. It is absolutely military, far more military in its precision than what we have in AFL football even at the top level.”

On Thursday, it Joe McGuire’s teammates who set up the win, racing out to a 34-0 first-half lead on the back of an efficient offence.

Each of their first four touchdowns came on drives of three plays or fewer, including a 66-yard rushing touchdown by TreVeyon Henderson.

It meant that McGuire’s role was almost reduced to one similar to the thousands of spectators that watched on in the opening two quarters. He was called on for a 36-yard punt early that went for a touch back before sitting down for the rest of the half.

However, Oregon have proved all season they’re not to be counted out, earning the number one seed for the playoffs as the only perfect ranked team. The Ducks bounced back with 15 straight points to narrow the margin.

The pressure was suddenly on Ohio State and McGuire found himself more involved in the game. He forced a fair catch with a solid 43-yard punt early in the third quarter as his side slowly wrestled the momentum back.

McGuire and the Buckeyes were eventually able to close-out the game thanks to a second rushing touchdown to Henderson. As the match petered out, McGuire produced three more punts, finishing with 202 yards for the night including a game-high punt of 47 yards.

It was sweet revenge for Ohio State after losing to Oregon by a point earlier in the season. The victory sets up a big semi-final match against the Texas Longhorns on January 11 at 11.30 AEDT, with the side now just two wins away from claiming the national championship.