Ohio State's Ryan Day was asked on Sunday about the value of the loads of experience his team had accumulated well before this long 2024 season had even begun.
"I think just maturity," he said. "Physical maturity to be able to withstand the length of the season. Mental maturity to be able to wipe the slate clean on a week-to-week basis and start a new game plan. And then just the emotional maturity of handling the ups and downs -- and certainly we know we've had a few of those this year -- and being able to steady the boat and get back to work and learn from those and rally the troops."
As it turned out, that maturity paid off as handsomely as Ohio State's immense level of talent in the seven weeks following a gutting loss to Michigan to finish the regular season. The Buckeyes became the first team to ever beat five top-five opponents in a single season and won their seventh national title, fending off Notre Dame 34-23 in Monday night's College Football Playoff National Championship game in Atlanta. They needed the emotional maturity to move past Michigan and the physical and mental maturity to handle their business against four straight excellent teams to take the crown.
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How the game was won | Key numbers | Impact plays
Could ND make another run?
A historic feat in perspective
What just happened?
There were three primary factors to Ohio State's victory.
1. Chip Kelly outdueled Al Golden
The SP+ projection was Ohio State 27.6, Notre Dame 21.7. I was skeptical about the Fighting Irish hitting that projection on offense because of their most recent round of offensive line injuries. Despite a dismal midgame drought, they eventually hit that mark. The defense, however, couldn't hold up its end of the bargain.
Ohio State scored touchdowns on its first four drives, then a field goal put the Buckeyes up 31-7 midway through the third quarter. Notre Dame made a couple of stops after that, but it came when Ohio State was more concerned with eating the clock. The Buckeyes converted all six of their third-down attempts in the first half and went 9-for-12 for the game.
Notre Dame defensive coordinator Al Golden entered this game with a massive decision to make: Would he continue to lean heavily on man-to-man pass coverage, or would he work in more zone out of respect for Ohio State's incredible skill corps? As I mentioned in my title game preview, it was a tough call.
Right out of the gate, the Irish tried to mix and match. Golden tried to keep OSU quarterback Will Howard off guard by bouncing between man and zone. But it didn't work: Howard and the Buckeyes torched both easily.
Howard vs. man defense: 9-for-13 for 141 yards and a touchdown
Howard vs. zone defense: 8-for-8 for 90 yards and a touchdown
Howard nearly threw an interception to Notre Dame ball hawk Xavier Watts on Ohio State's third drive, but TreVeyon Henderson was able to wrestle the ball away from Watts to force an incompletion. Otherwise, he was perfect. The Irish couldn't get much pressure on him under any circumstances, and OSU offensive coordinator Chip Kelly also had some devastating stuff schemed up -- like the Buckeyes' first touchdown, an absolutely nasty motion fake that left Jeremiah Smith wide open for a touchdown.
Ohio State QB Will Howard tosses to an open Jeremiah Smith, who waltzes in for a touchdown to tie the score.
Golden's defensive scheme had been masterful in the run-up to the title game, but Kelly got the better of him on Monday night, right down to the 56-yard bomb to Smith with 2:38 left that effectively ended the game.
Ohio State QB Will Howard connects with Jeremiah Smith for a huge 56-yard catch late in the fourth quarter.
With no high safety, Golden was basically daring the Buckeyes to go deep. So they did.
2. Will Howard had the game of his life
All season, I felt like a nag, repeatedly comparing Howard's production to that of his predecessor, Kyle McCord, who was run out of town following a disappointing 2023 season. At the end of the regular season, following a dreadful performance against Michigan, Howard's Total QBR was 83.1. McCord's after 12 games in 2023: 83.8.
Ohio State had spent pretty big money to get a fresh start at quarterback, and it didn't really pay off over 12 games. But McCord didn't get a shot at playoff redemption; Howard did and made the most of it, completing 82 of 109 passes (75%) for 1,150 yards (14.0 per completion) with eight touchdowns and just two picks (the same number he had against the Wolverines).
Per ESPN Research, Howard became the seventh player with at least 200 passing yards and 50 rushing yards in a BCS or CFP championship game, joining an incredible list of QB royalty: Virginia Tech's Michael Vick (2000), Texas' Vince Young (2006), Florida's Tim Tebow (2009), Auburn's Cam Newton (2011), Clemson's Deshaun Watson (2016) and LSU's Joe Burrow (2020).
No one will ever compare Howard to McCord again.
3. The best defense in the country showed up
Notre Dame's glorious opening touchdown drive felt like a statement of intent by the Irish. They repeatedly found advantages to exploit against Ohio State's defensive front, they converted a pair of fourth downs, and after 18 plays and nearly 10 minutes of possession, they scored on a 1-yard plunge from plunger extraordinaire Riley Leonard.
In retrospect, what felt like a statement was actually a warning sign for the Irish. All they had to do to score was convert two fourth downs, run Leonard nine times, commit no penalties, average just 4.2 yards per play and take up 9:45 of clock. It's hard to do that twice. Just ask Tennessee: In the first round against the Buckeyes, the Vols scored on a 16-play TD drive to cut Ohio State's lead to 21-10 late in the first half. They went scoreless in their first five drives of the second half and lost by 25.
As soon as the Irish introduced mistakes of any kind -- a couple of penalties on their second drive, a botched third-down snap on the third drive -- the game was effectively over. Following their TD drive, they went three-and-out, three-and-out and four-and-out. They didn't move the chains again until seven minutes remained in the third quarter, and by then, they trailed by 24 points.
Now, the Irish did bounce back. They did so all season. In their final three drives, they scored two touchdowns (with successful 2-point conversions) and drove to the OSU 9 before attempting (and missing) a field goal early in the fourth quarter. (They almost certainly should have gone for it instead of kicking, but their odds of success on fourth-and-goal from the 9 were low enough that it wasn't going to alter their win probability much either way.) Leonard went 19-for-23 for 216 yards over those three drives and found Jaden Greathouse for a pair of touchdowns. But it was too little, too late. Ohio State had virtually put the game out of reach.
Buckeyes defensive coordinator Jim Knowles had the best chess pieces all season, and he has deployed them almost perfectly for two seasons in a row. The Buckeyes jumped to second in defensive SP+ in 2023 and will easily finish first in 2024. The offense was obviously awesome but suffered some random glitches, especially during a midseason run of offensive line injuries. But only one team scored more than 23 points this season against Ohio State -- Oregon in the regular season. The Buckeyes allowed only 18.8 points per game in playoff games against four of the best teams in the country.
Key stats
Yards: Ohio State 445 (7.2 per play), Notre Dame 308 (5.3)
Yards over the first 37:08 (as OSU built its 31-7 lead): Ohio State 322 (7.3), Notre Dame 101 (3.6)
Percentage of plays gaining zero or negative yardage: Notre Dame 31.0%, Ohio State 17.7%
Gains of 15-plus yards: Ohio State 9 (253 total yards), Notre Dame 5 (144 yards, all in the game's final 23 minutes)
Third downs: Ohio State 9-for-12 (75%), Notre Dame 5-for-12 (42%)
Will Howard (Ohio State): 17-for-21 for 231 yards, two touchdowns and two sacks (9.9 yards per attempt), plus 14 carries for 61 yards and eight first downs
Riley Leonard (Notre Dame): 22-for-31 for 255 yards, two touchdowns and two sacks (7.3 yards per attempt), plus 15 carries for 53 yards, a touchdown and five first downs
Quinshon Judkins (Ohio State): 13 combined carries and catches, 121 yards and three touchdowns
Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price (Notre Dame): 9 combined carries and catches, 21 yards
Jaden Greathouse (Notre Dame): 8 targets, 6 catches, 128 yards, two touchdowns
Jeremiah Smith (Ohio State): 7 targets, 5 catches, 88 yards, one touchdown
Tackles for loss: Notre Dame 7, Ohio State 5
JT Tuimoloau (Ohio State): 5 tackles, 2 TFLs, 1 sack
Joshua Burnham (Notre Dame): 4 tackles, 2 TFLs, 2 sacks
Xavier Watts (Notre Dame): 8 tackles, 1 TFL, 1 pass breakup
Impact plays
Win probability charts are a lot more fun in close games, but you can certainly tell where Ohio State took complete control.
From Leonard's touchdown on Notre Dame's first drive to Howard's beautiful 6-yard strike to Judkins with 27 seconds left in the half, Ohio State snapped the ball 33 times and enjoyed a success rate* of 64%. Notre Dame snapped the ball six times and had a 17% success rate. Put another way, of the 39 snaps in this span, Ohio State won two-thirds of them -- and scored three touchdowns, too. There were plenty of pretty plays in this run for the Buckeyes, but the impact was cumulative. Howard's late 56-yard bomb to Smith was obviously a different kind of impact play, but the Buckeyes were well in control at that point.
(* Success rate = how frequently an offense is gaining 50% of necessary yardage on first down, 70% on second down and 100% on third or fourth down)
Could Notre Dame make another run?
Two years ago, when TCU rode a run of tight wins and incredible finishes to the CFP championship before an all-time shellacking against Georgia, it was fair to wonder how long it might be until we saw the Horned Frogs in another title game. Last year, when Washington fell to Michigan and lost star after star to the NFL (as well as head coach Kalen DeBoer to Alabama), it was fair to wonder about the Huskies, too.
Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman reflects on losing to Ohio State in the College Football Playoff Championship Game.
Notre Dame, however, has almost guaranteed staying power. Making a run to the title game in a 12-team playoff will always be a huge challenge for just about every team moving forward -- this is an actual tournament now -- but we know that Marcus Freeman's Fighting Irish are going to be favorites to at least make the field of 12 more often than not.
It's a damn shame that someone had to go through this absolute marathon of a season and lose the final game, but eventually the lack of margin for error on offense cost them after 13 straight wins. Despite losing Leonard, tight end Mitchell Evans and defensive stars like Watts and Howard Cross III (plus previously injured stars like Rylie Mills and Benjamin Morrison), the Irish bring back a wonderfully deep base of playmakers at running back and throughout the defense, and after all sorts of injuries up front, the offensive line should be both experienced and outstanding.
The quarterback position will be the topic of the spring, and they'll need another playmaker out wide. But redshirt freshman quarterback CJ Carr and 2024 backup Steve Angeli both have upside, Greathouse was a late-season star, and the Irish start 2025 fourth on Mark Schlabach's Way-Too-Early Top 25. (Ohio State: first.)
A run unlike anything before it (and like pretty much everything that will follow)
Ohio State had quite possibly the most talented roster in the country, but it needed maturity and resilience -- and the extra mulligan an expanded playoff could offer -- to get the job done. And despite all the talent in the world, the Buckeyes also brought a limitless number of redemption stories to the table as they beat the Nos. 1, 3, 5 and 7 teams in the country to win the title.
Seven weeks ago, Day had basically been fired by the Ohio State fan base following the Michigan game.
Kelly had to wait 14 years for another shot at a national title following his Oregon Ducks' last-minute loss to Cam Newton and Auburn in the 2011 BCS championship.
Knowles' defense had given up 42 points and 433 yards in his only CFP game as a defensive coordinator (vs. Georgia in 2022).
Howard absolutely stunk against Michigan, throwing for 175 yards and two interceptions and leading this ridiculously talented offense to just 10 points.
Henderson missed 2022's CFP because of injury and was banged up and ineffective late in 2023.
The offensive line was terribly rickety late in the regular season following season-ending injuries to a couple of different starters.
Safety Caleb Downs lost to Michigan last season as a member of Alabama's secondary, then lost to the Wolverines again with the Buckeyes.
Now they're all national champions. Day has won as many titles as either Urban Meyer or Jim Tressel did in Columbus.
Ohio State won four playoff games by double digits; the Buckeyes entered the CFP ranked first in SP+, and while their upside was no surprise, they made that run look far easier than they had any right to.
They made some history in the process. In 2024, the Buckeyes became the first team to both play six top-five teams and beat five of them.
Five top-5 wins in a season: 2024 Ohio State (5-1)
Four top-5 wins in a season: 1943 Notre Dame (4-0), 1967 USC (4-0), 2019 LSU (4-0)
Three top-5 wins in a season: 21 teams, including 15 national champions (1968 Ohio State, 1975 Oklahoma, 1982 Penn State, 1988 Notre Dame, 2000 Oklahoma, 2008 Florida, 2011 LSU, 2012 Alabama, 2015 Alabama, 2016 Clemson, 2017 Alabama, 2020 Alabama, 2021 Georgia, 2022 Georgia, 2023 Michigan)
Before the start of the BCS era in 1998, only six teams in just over 60 years had won the national title by beating at least three top-five teams. In the 15-year BCS era, three more teams did the deed, but in the 10-year era of the four-team CFP, seven did it. We had already raised the bar for our champions, and now we've raised it another several notches. Between the consolidation of college football big brands into basically two conferences (the Big Ten and SEC) and a requirement to win either three or four playoff games to lift the trophy, it's going to take an entirely new level of sustained excellence.
With an equal mix of epic talent and tons of maturity, the Buckeyes opened the new era with a title. They may be only the second two-loss national champion of the past 60-something years, but they just finished the greatest late-season run we've seen. And they damn well might do this all over again a year from now.