ATLANTA — Two months after a stunning loss to their most bitter rival seeded doubts about Ohio State’s coach and future, the Buckeyes left no doubt Monday about their place within college football’s hierarchy.
To end the 2024 season, Ohio State sits alone at the top after its 34-23 win against Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff national championship earned the program’s ninth national title and its first in a decade.
Ohio State quarterback Will Howard finished 17-for-21 passing for 231 yards and two scores. His 56-yard completion to star freshman wideout Jeremiah Smith with 2:45 remaining in the fourth quarter and Ohio State clinging to an eight-point lead set up the game-clinching touchdown.
“I just knew in my mind I had to make a play,” said Smith, who finished with 88 yards on five catches. “Finally, we got (one-on-one coverage) toward the end of the game, but I just knew I had to make a play when it’s man on man.”
Running back Quinshon Judkins added 100 yards on the ground with two rushing scores and a receiving touchdown. Against one of the best third-down defenses in the nation, Ohio State converted 9-of-12 third-down opportunities as it scythed through Notre Dame’s defense for much of the first three quarters.
Buckeyes players danced under confetti falling from the ceiling of Mercedes-Benz Stadium as the final seconds ran off the clock. To get here, Ohio State (14-2) had to first regroup from its Nov. 30 home loss to Michigan. Heavy underdogs, the Wolverines nonetheless muted Ohio State’s bevy of offensive playmakers in a performance that eliminated Ohio State from the Big Ten championship game and left Buckeyes coach Ryan Day with a blank stare and fans shaken in their confidence that Day was the right man to shoulder the enormous expectations that every Ohio State football coach inherits.
“It wasn’t like at the end of the year we were broken, it wasn’t that way,” Day said after he earned his long-sought national title. “We had an awful day. I don’t know how else to describe it. We had an awful day, and we just said we could never do that again, and I think it’s the job of the head coach to take the responsibility when something goes bad like that.”
In any other year, a two-loss Ohio State team coming off a bitter regular-season finale would not have made the four-team College Football Playoff field. Yet this season marked the first of an expanded field that grew to 12, and Ohio State, which limped into the field as the eighth seed, took advantage. Over the next three games — blowouts of Tennessee, in the first round, and top-seeded Oregon, in a quarterfinal, followed by a narrow semifinal victory over Texas — the Buckeyes never trailed and did not flinch under pressure by making plays that either took control from the very start against Texas or sealed a win at the very end.
The Buckeyes finally showed vulnerability in Monday’s national championship game against the seventh-seeded Irish (14-2), who marched 75 yards and took nearly 10 minutes off the clock before they scored a touchdown on the opening drive.
That proved to be the high point of Notre Dame’s night. Ohio State scored touchdowns on its first four drives and added a field goal on its fifth to lead 31-7 in only the third quarter. By then, its rushing attack had gained more yards in barely more than two quarters than the Irish had allowed on average per game all season.
Notre Dame made a late attempt at a rally by scoring to trim its deficit to 31-15 late in the third quarter. When its field goal attempt bounced off the left upright and fell harmlessly to the turf minutes later, the celebration continued inside a stadium dominated by a palette of fans dressed in Ohio State’s scarlet and gray. When the Fighting Irish again, with 4:15 left in regulation, a nervous tension overtook the stadium until Smith’s completion.
“It was a big play for the freshman,” Ohio State receiver Emeka Egbuka said. “He’s amazing, he’s going to have an amazing career, here and in the NFL.”
It is the first time since 1965-66 that the Big Ten has won at least a share of a national championship in consecutive seasons; Michigan claimed last season’s title. The Wolverines, this season, appeared to push Ohio State to the brink of collapse in late November.
“There were a lot of hard conversations that had to be had,” Egbuka said of the weeks after the loss to Michigan.
Those conversations begat celebrations Monday. After celebratory confetti fell on a hastily assembled stage near the end zone and after Buckeyes players hoisted the championship trophy, Day stepped down from the stage and was grabbed by a friend on the field in a hug.
“You look good soaked!” he told Day, who had been drenched in a sideline bath in the final seconds.
Day smiled widely. So much can change in two months.
