
College Football Playoff: Final
The culmination of college football’s great experiment, the expansion to a 12-team playoff postseason, brought together two of the game’s more storied institutions at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.
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National Championship Game
Ohio State 34 vs Notre Dame 23
The memories of all the big games choked, especially the excruciating loss to bitter rivals Michigan in the final week of the regular season, were washed away in a deluge of green Gatorade as jubilant Buckeyes gave their head coach a victory shower.
Before the cooler was tipped over his head, Ryan Day watched from the sideline in anticipation as Will Howard’s rainbow pass soared 56 yards into the waiting hands of Jeremiah Smith. The star receiver had not been targeted at all in the second half before this crucial play on third-and-eleven.
Ohio State had reverted to a conservative brand of football late in the fourth quarter, running the ball in an attempt to salt away the clock and hold on in the face of a resurgent Notre Dame comeback. But, on a crucial third down that needed a big play. Smith found himself one-on-one against corner Christian Gray and Howard let loose his best and most important pass of the season. The pass that sealed Ohio State’s first National Championship title since 2014 and their seventh recognised crown overall.
Notre Dame had opened the game with a gutsy, and clock-sapping, 18-play drive, the longest in Championship history, that culminated in Riley Leonard using his legs to ram home the score and give the Buckeyes an unexpected punch in the mouth. But Ohio State responded in kind and, as with each of their three previous playoff games, scored a touchdown on their opening drive after Howard found Smith from eight yards out to open the second quarter.
Howard was the epitome of accuracy in the first half, completed his first 13 passes to power his team to a 21-7 halftime lead, with Quinshon Judkins accounting for both rushing and passing touchdowns as the Buckeyes extended their advantage without so much as an answer from their opponents. The second half opened in explosive fashion as Judkins burst through the line and ran for 70 yards before being downed at the five — only to punch in for the score three plays later.
Notre Dame were faced with what seemed to be an insurmountable deficit. After coach Marcus Freeman’s decision to run a fake punt on fourth-and-two saw backup QB Steve Angeli’s pass to Jordan Faison fall to the ground, it appeared that the mountain was too high, but hope was renewed by breakout receiver Jaden Greathouse, who again came up with a performance that spurred a spirited comeback.
Greathouse’s catch on a slant route before zig-zagging through defenders and breaking two tackles en route to 34-yard touchdown gave a spark of hope, although it needed the only turnover of the game — Drayk Bowen punching the ball out of then hands of a weaving Emeka Egbuka on the following Ohio State drive — to ensure that spark wasn’t immediately extinguished. Notre Dame had the ball and a chance, and Leonard’s 30-yard loft that found Greathouse in the corner of the endzone brought the Irish within a single score after an end around Faison pass connected with a wide-open Beaux Collins to convert the two-point attempt.
The Irish were fighting, and on the verge of a defensive stop with more than two minutes left on the clock, when Howard’s pass to Smith put the Buckeyes in range for a Jayden Fielding field goal that put the game out of reach.
Defensive end Jack Sawyer summed up the emotion of the victory as ‘the best feeling I’ve ever felt’. The thousands of fans that travelled from Ohio to Atlanta will undoubtedly agree.