Notre Dame and Ohio State, for all their imperfections, perfectly represent the promise of the 12-team playoff era.
Perfection, or at least near-perfection, has long characterized college football’s national championships. The sport has no officially recognized two-loss title team in modern times. Minnesota claimed a split championship in 1960, before losing to Washington in the Rose Bowl, back when the Associated Press declared champions before the postseason.
Creating a playoff, especially one with more than three rounds, was a very radical concept for college football. Because serious playoffs are the antithesis of the pursuit of perfection.
However, single-elimination tournaments are beloved for the confusion that arises from their inherent unpredictability. Millions of people flock to the NCAA Tournament every March to watch small schools from faraway places defeat giant schools with seemingly limitless resources.
The College Football Playoff was no match for Madness for a variety of reasons. Chief among those reasons is that football, like basketball, is less volatile from game to game. However, the NFL Playoffs, which begin at the same time as the College Football Playoffs, have brought a lot of drama, with wild card participants competing in the Super Bowl.
The first 12-team playoff championship game is a matchup much closer to the NFL postseason than college football finals in the past. The College Football Playoff could get even more confusing considering the two wild-card teams have never faced each other head-to-head in the Super Bowl.
Notre Dame and Ohio State are both wild card participants in the College Football Playoff edition.
Ohio State went from looking like the most disappointing contender, losing to Michigan in the regular season finale, to playing perhaps the best football of any team on the field. After dominating Tennessee in the Rose Bowl and avenging a regular-season loss to Oregon, the Buckeyes showed they were capable of winning in the Cotton Bowl.
Will Howard’s fourth-down carry missed 85 yards through Southern Central, but the quarterback’s 18-yard pickup that extended the drive and ultimately Quinshon Judkins’ touchdown was the record for Ohio State. He has the potential to become a college legend.
At least, that would be the case if Jack Sawyer didn’t provide a decisive playoff run. As Texas looked for the game-clinching touchdown, pressure on Quinn Ewers resulted in a strip sack and an exclamation point scoop and score that put them one win away from an unprecedented national championship.
The Buckeyes are the quintessential wild-card team. An undeniably talented group is making the leap at the right time. Notre Dame was a wild card in another sense, having endured mounting injuries and a possible flu outbreak to bring the nation’s longest winning streak to the playoffs.
A championship win for the Fighting Irish would continue college football’s long-standing tradition of winning titles with one loss or no losses, but coach Marcus Freeman’s team is a wild card. no doubt.
Notre Dame will not be able to get one of the automatic bids by sticking to its tradition of independence. In any case, it’s not possible under the system’s current rules. However, the Fighting Irish, who were ranked No. 5 entering the tournament, would not have qualified at all despite finishing the regular season with 10 straight wins.
That streak, now 13 games into the national championship game, began after a loss that was perhaps more questionable than the only loss of the 2024 season, Ohio State vs. Michigan.
Notre Dame’s 16-14 loss to Northern Illinois in Week 2 gave its resume the kind of imperfections that have been too ugly to overcome in the college football race thus far.
“At your lowest moments, you learn the most about yourself.” Freeman said after his team’s 27-24 victory over Penn State in the Orange Bowl.. “We had some down moments, but we had a really down moment in Week 2. And they fought.”
Irish quarterback Riley Leonard’s individual performance in the Orange Bowl served as a microcosm of Notre Dame’s season as a whole. They got off to a rocky start with an interception and injury concerns, but eventually came through and won a big win.
A pitch-and-catch connection between Leonard and Jaden Greathouse resulted in a 54-yard game-tying touchdown, and it wasn’t the game-clinching play. Notre Dame still needed Christian Gray’s interception of Drew Allard to make Mitch Jeter’s decisive field goal.
But the touchdown reception that made it 24-24 was the moment it felt like the Orange Bowl semifinal was over. For all the flaws that may have prevented the Fighting Irish from winning a championship in the past, they overcame them and earned a chance at this title in the 2024 season.
Neither Notre Dame nor Ohio State are perfect. And it perfectly reflects what the new-style playoffs mean.
