What about Ohio State, Notre Dame, and football’s championship game?

Ohio State, Notre Dame and college football’s championship game: What to know about the old system and the black head coaches in the Football Bowl Subdivision

In a previous era of college football, the two teams in Monday night’s championship game — Ohio State and Notre Dame — wouldn’t have been in the playoffs at all.

For most of the history of the top level of college football, a team had to go undefeated in the regular season, or else get very lucky, in order to contend for a title. A single bad regular season defeat is often fatal to those chances.

In college football, it doesn’t get much more iconic than Notre Dame or Ohio State. These two programs are both among the top-five winningest teams of all time: Ohio State is second in total wins, and Notre Dame is tied for fourth.

Under the old system, those L’s might have doomed both teams’ title hopes. Instead, they will face off on the biggest stage to win their first-ever championship.

In college football’s modern era, both teams are from the Midwest. College football has come to be dominated by teams from the South, which have won all but two of the last 19 title games.

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 not budged in a decade.

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

Three Yards and a Cloud of Dust: Opening the Buckeyes Play with Noah Howard in the Final of the 2003 Super-Big Blast

An early enrollee of Ohio State’s $20 million roster is the star of the show, a 19-year-old budding superstar wide receiver who has lived up to the hype that surrounded his recruitment.

Smith has racked up over 1,300 receiving yards and 15 touchdown this season. His biggest game to date was 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.

Texas’ defense made Ohio State’s ability to execute difficult plays difficult to overcome. The Longhorns held Smith to just one reception for three yards. But ultimately, the Texas offense couldn’t convert when it mattered.

Quarterback Riley Leonard’s legs have been a difference-maker all season long for the Irish. But in the semifinal against Penn State, it was his arm that came through in the game’s biggest moments — including a 54-yard touchdown to tie the game late, then a key first down completion with 17 seconds remaining that put them in easy field goal range for the game’s final score. Can he come through for the Irish again?

It was that 56-yard gain that snuffed out a feverish Notre Dame comeback and made the Buckeyes the champion of the sport’s first 12-team playoff, just as they were champions of its first four-team tournament a decade ago.

A play that felt about 100 years removed from Ohio State’s once program-Defining “Three Yards and a Cloud of Dust” is what Howard said of the play that he let loose.

It was a win that many hadn’t thought possible after the loss to Michigan, and that Ryan Day was under fire because of it.

Describing Notre Dame in the Green: How Quinshon Judkins and Mitch Jeter Meteorized to Win the Semifinal Against Ohio State

“It’s a great story about a bunch of guys who have just overcome some really tough situations, and at the point where there’s a lot of people that counted us out (they) just kept swinging and kept fighting,” Day said.

It might be more sweeter since it happened in a jam-packed stadium, in the middle of SEC country, where Notre Dame fans were wearing green while Ohio State fans were wearing red.

Notre Dame was down 31-7 in the fourth quarter when they scored two touchdown and two point conversions to make it a one-point game. The Irish coach gestured a thumbs up after being found in his luxury box, even though he was booed by Ohio State fans.

Notre Dame was running out of time. After stopping the Ohio State on their first two plays, the Irish put Christian Gray in single coverage on Smith, who was the man responsible for Notre Dame’s 2-0 semifinal win.

Howard threw for 231 yards and two scores, but nothing will beat the pass to Smith with everything on the line.

The receiver, who was held up by Texas in the semifinals and quiet for most of the game, finally got his chance and made the kind of play that he has been making all year. He made five catches for 88 yards.

“We thought we would give him that shot at the end of the day,” Day said. I wanted to be aggressive, and lay it on the line, so we threw it all night.

Ohio State didn’t really look like a team that needed to take risks after scoring touchdowns on its first four possessions, then adding a field goal on its fifth.

When Quinshon Judkins (100 yards, 11 carries, three TDs), a transfer from Mississippi who highlighted Ohio State’s judicious use of the ever-growing portal, busted a 70-yard run to set up the score that made it 28-7, this game looked over.

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 been better if the kick didn’t clang off the left upright.

The better team was Ohio State. The Buckeyes outgained Notre Dame 445 yards to 308. Howard completed his first 13 passes. Ohio State punted a grand total of once.

It was a great time for Ohio State to play in the new, expanded playoffs since it didn’t even play in the Big Ten title game last year.

Ohio State was seeded eighth, but the seedings were pretty much meaningless. The worse seed won every game in the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds, and the Buckeyes dominated in this title-game showdown of No. 7 vs. No. 8.

Ohio State’s 13-10 win over Michigan in November, which ended in a brawl after players tried to plant a flag in the middle of the field, puts to rest any concern that the game was a sign of things to come.

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.

The Ohio State marching band can dot the “I” next time, because they won the national title. Day can join a list of previous title-winning coaches with Urban Meyer. Jim Tressel (2002), Woody Hayes (“Three yards and a cloud of dust”) and Paul Brown (who went on to become the namesake of the NFL’s Cleveland Browns).

In terms of winning percentages, Day was one of only a few coaches with 50-plus games who was behind the Notre Dame legend Knute Rockne.

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

Big Ten Classical Blast-of-the-Saw Event: Michigan’s Buckeyes Reionization Story Revisited

That is a different kind of history. The Big Ten has only taken back-to-back titles once before. Last year’s champion was Michigan, which was sitting home watching this one, but still played a special role in a Buckeyes redemption story hardly anyone saw coming.