ATLANTA — Instead of crying over another collapse, Ohio State can celebrate another national title after holding off a Notre Dame comeback bid Monday night to walk away with a nail-biter of a 34-23 victory over the Fighting Irish.
Will Howard hit big-play receiver Jeremiah Smith for 56 yards on a late third-and-11 to lock down a game that had been a laugher, then turned into something else.
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.
The Irish stopped Ohio State on the first two plays of the next drive and used their timeouts. But on third down, Howard found Smith in single coverage on the right sideline and dropped his best pass of the season into the hands of the second-team All-American.
“They were running man coverage and I said, ‘Hey, I’m gonna let this loose and let him make a play on it,’” Howard said.
It set up a field goal that started the celebration in earnest (and helped Ohio State cover the 8 1/2-point spread at BetMGM Sportsbook). And it closed out a seven-week climb from the depths of a program-shaking loss to 20-point underdog Michigan to the top of college football after this, the debut of the sport’s 12-team playoff.
Ohio State will bring its sixth “natty” and first since the 2014 season back to the Horseshoe in Columbus.
“It’s a great story about a bunch of guys who have just overcome some really tough situations, and with the point where there’s a lot of people that counted us out (they) just kept swinging and kept fighting,” Buckeyes coach Ryan Day said.
Howard, a transfer-portal success story from Kansas State, threw for 231 yards and two scores, but nothing will beat the pass to Smith with everything on the line.
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.
Ohio State scored touchdowns on its first four possessions, then added 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 Irish coach Marcus 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.
Really, though, Ohio State was the better team. The Buckeyes outgained Notre Dame 445 yards to 308. Howard completed his first 13 passes and never really got stopped. Ohio State punted a grand total of once.
The Buckeyes rolled through four games in the new, expanded playoff — what great timing for Ohio State, which didn’t even play for the Big Ten title — by an average score of 36-21.
Ohio State was seeded eighth in the tournament, 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.
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.
Instead, he’s on a list of title-winning coaches with Urban Meyer, Jim Tressel, Woody Hayes and Paul Brown. Also, Day’s .873 winning percentage is third among coaches with 50-plus games — one spot behind none other than the Notre Dame legend Knute Rockne, himself.
College football still has never had a Black coach win the national title. Freeman was trying to become the first.
Instead, another kind of history. This marked the first time the Big Ten has taken back-to-back titles since 1942. 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.