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Two upset losses stood out among the rest in college football this season. Notre Dame suffered one of them. Ohio State the other.
In years past, those losses might have been enough to knock both teams out of the hunt for a national title. This year, with the debut of the 12-team playoff, those two teams will play for it.
The Buckeyes beat Texas 28-14 on Friday night to set up a Jan. 20 meeting against the Fighting Irish. Ohio State hasn’t lost since it fell 13-10 to Michigan in November. Notre Dame hasn’t lost since it fell 16-14 to Northern Illinois way back in September.
Ohio State is in search of its ninth national title, and its first since the College Football Playoff debuted in 2014 with a four-team playoff. Notre Dame is going for its 12th championship, but its first since 1988.
This Big Ten vs. independent matchup means this is the second straight year that the Southeastern Conference will be shut out of the final after winning the championship in six of the previous eight years.
Ohio State opens as a 9 1/2-point favorite according to BetMGM. Ohio State won meetings in 2022 and 2023 and leads the series 6-2.
The losses this season helped set the tone for both teams as they embarked on the sort of comeback that might not have been possible in years past.
“The time you’re tested the most is when you’re at your lowest point,” said Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman, who will become the first Black coach to capture the national title with a win. “We lose to Northern Illinois and you’ve got a decision: ‘Do I want to be selfless? Or am I going to put individual glory ahead of myself?’”
Ohio State coach Ryan Day said the Michigan game is “what life’s all about.”
“You have to go through adversity along the way, and how you handle adversity is how you define life, and these guys are going through life lessons right now,” Day said.
Transferring for a title
The game will pit Notre Dame quarterback Riley Leonard against Ohio State’s Will Howard, each of whom are in their first year at their schools after entering the transfer portal after last season.
Though there was NIL money involved, both players said they moved to schools to try to win a title.
“The truth is, I came here to win a national championship, and to go to the best team that would give me the best chance to do that,” said Riley, who moved to Notre Dame from Duke.
“I had a list of things I was looking for, in terms of needing to go somewhere where there was a lot of talent around me and somewhere I could compete for a national championship,” Howard told ESPN last year, not long after he made the move from Kansas State.
Matchup to watch
It felt right that the nation’s best defense turned an opponent’s first-and-goal from its 1 into a touchdown of its own. That’s how Ohio State wrapped up its win Friday night — a fitting exclamation point for a team that leads the country in both yards and points allowed.
Notre Dame is good on ‘D,’ too. The Fighting Irish allow the ninth-fewest yards and also rank third in turnover differential even after losing that battle in the win over Penn State.
Leonard has been figuring out ways to win in the playoffs using his arms and legs, but other than a fourth-quarter flurry against a big, fast Penn State defense, the fighting Irish offense has plodded through the quarters and semifinals. Also worth monitoring is the status of left tackle Anthonie Knapp, who left Thursday’s game early.
About the playoff seeding
Give credit where it’s due. While the first two rounds of playoff action featured a steady stream of boring blowouts, the semifinal games were fun and close.
Still, when the worse seed wins every game in the final eight and final four, something is amiss.
In the case of these playoffs, the answer seems obvious. The byes handed out to conference champions, all of whom lost in the quarterfinals, distorted the rankings and jumbled the bracket.
Ohio State’s dismantling of top seed Oregon and Notre Dame’s win over No. 2 Georgia (without its quarterback) removed any doubt that some great team got cheated solely by the bracket. It might have also shown that, brackets aside, there are many good but no great teams now that NIL and the transfer portal are in full swing.
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