Ohio State, Notre Dame and college football’s championship game: Why did Ohio State play a playoff playoff in the past? What to know about the football bowl subdivision

The two teams that played in Monday night’s title game, Ohio State and Notre Dame, weren’t in the playoffs in the past.

For most of the history of the top level of college football, a team had to go 13-0 in the regular season in order to contend for a title. A single bad regular season loss often would doom those chances.

Both Ohio State and Notre Dame have been strong all season long. But they each dropped a confounding loss in the regular season: The Buckeyes in a rivalry game against a mediocre Michigan team, and Notre Dame in a stunning September upset by Northern Illinois.

TheL’s might have hurt the teams’ title hopes if the system had been in place. Instead, they’re poised to face off on the sport’s biggest stage to claim the first-ever championship in the expanded playoff era.

Another notable thing in college football’s modern era: Both teams are from the Midwest. The teams from the South have won all but two of the last 19 title games in college football.

When it comes to the achievement of Black head coaches, college football lags far behind the NFL, and even further behind college basketball and the NBA — even though roughly half of players in the top level of the sport are Black. The number of Black head coaches in the Football Bowl Subdivision has hardly changed over the last decade.

Source: What to know about Ohio State, Notre Dame and college football’s championship game

Jeremiah Smith and the Big Game: The Irish No-Bound on a 17-Year-Old Prodigal

The jewel of Ohio State’s $20 million roster is the 19-year-old budding superstar wide receiver Jeremiah Smith, a 6-foot-3 true freshman who has lived up to the hype that surrounded his recruitment out of high school.

Smith has racked up 1,227 receiving yards and 15 total touchdowns this season. He had the biggest game yet when Ohio State beat Oregon in the quarterfinals. Smith caught 187 yards on seven receptions, two of them for touchdowns — and he did almost all of it in a dominating first half.

From the final score, Ohio State’s semifinal win over Texas may look a bit tooloppy. But two of Ohio State’s touchdowns came on long plays — a short screen pass that turned into a 75-yard touchdown just before halftime, and the game-clinching 83-yard fumble recovery for a touchdown in the final minutes of the game.

Quarterback Riley Leonard’s legs have been a difference-maker all season long for the Irish. It was his arm which put them in field goal range after a key first down completion, and his 54-yard touchdown to tie the game late. Is he able to come through for the Irish again?

The 56-yard gain that was the difference in the game was the one that made Ohio State the champion of the first 12-team playoff.

Howard said that he told them to let him make a play on it, and that it felt more like Ohio State’s famous three yards and a cloud of dust play.

This was not a win that any of them would have thought possible seven weeks ago when a loss to Michigan sparked a near-riot on the field and there were rumors of Ryan Day’s job security.

Lasing it on the line: The game that night changed everything for Ohio State, Notre Dame, and New York in a Christmas tree

“The story is about a group of guys who overcame some tough situations, and at the same time, there are a lot of people who didn’t like them, and they kept swinging and kept fighting,” Day said.

It might be that much sweeter because of how it went down in a jam-packed stadium in the middle of SEC country that looked like a Christmas tree — Ohio State fans on one half in red, Notre Dame’s on the other in green.

Trailing 31-7, Notre Dame scored two touchdowns and two 2-point conversions to make it a one-score game late in the fourth quarter. There was a camera in the stadium that caught legendary Irish coach Lou Holtz in his suite and he flashed a thumbs-up while ignoring all those fans who booed him.

But Notre Dame’s time was running out. The Irish had a single coverage on Smith, after stopping the Buckeyes on the first two plays, and using their timeouts.

Howard, a transfer-portal success story from KState, threw for 231 yards and 2 scores, but it was the pass to Smith that mattered the most.

The receiver, who had been bottled up by Texas in the semifinals then fairly quiet for most of this game, finally got loose for the kind of play he’s been making all year. He finished with five catches for 88 yards.

“We felt at the end we wanted to give Jeremiah that shot,” Day said. We really hadn’t thrown it all night, so I decided to be aggressive and lay it on the line.

After scoring four times in the first half,Ohio State didn’t look like a team that needed to take risks.

The game looked over when Quinshon Judkins, who transferred from Mississippi, ran for a 70yard touchdown to fuel Ohio State’s scoring.

It wasn’t, and now Freeman will have to answer a few tough questions — one about the failed fake punt in the third quarter that turned into a field goal for a 31-7 lead; the other about sending Mitch Jeter in for a short field goal attempt while down 16 and facing fourth-and-goal from the 9. It might have looked like a better call had Jeter’s kick not clanged off the left upright.

The Ohio State team was the better team. The Buckeyes had more yards than Notre Dame. Howard did not get stopped after completing his first 13 passes. The Ohio State football team didn’t have a lot of success on punts.

The new, expanded playoff allowed Ohio State to play in four games and win them all by an average score of 36-21.

Ohio State was seeded eighth, but the seedings were pretty much meaningless. The worse seed won all of its games in the tournament and the best team won all of its games.

It puts to rest, for now, any angst about that 13-10 Michigan loss in November — Ohio State’s fourth straight in the series — that ended with a brawl after Wolverine players tried to plant a flag at midfield.

The whole scene left a lot of folks, both in and out of Buckeye circles, thinking Day, in his sixth season, had outlived his usefulness on a campus that hadn’t tasted a title in a decade.

Next time, the Ohio State marching band will be able to dot the “I” and win the national title. And Day can join a list of title-winning coaches with Urban Meyer (2014) Paul Brown became the namesake of the Cleveland Browns because of Woody Hayes, who was named three yards and a cloud of dust.

Day’s winning percentage was third only to the legendary Knute Rockne of Notre Dame, and he had 50 games or more.

Source: Ohio State defeats Notre Dame 34-23 in college football championship game

Another Big Ten Story: Michigan’s Grand Champion, the Buckeyes’ Sakurai, and the Big Ten’s Jackolson

There was another kind of history. The Big Ten has not taken back-to-back titles since 1942. Last year’s champion was Michigan, which was sitting home watching, but still played a significant role in the success of the Buckeyes redemption story.