Moving the Chains: National Championship Game (& more)

By Scott Ludwig, [email protected]

On the eve of the National Championship game in Atlanta, I found an interesting dichotomy between the coaches of the two teams competing: Ryan Day of Ohio State and Marcus Freeman of Notre Dame.

The last time the Buckeyes won the National Championship, Urban Meyer was their head coach, and Ryan Day was the offensive coordinator at Boston College.  The last time the Fighting Irish won the big game, Lou Holtz was their coach … and Marcus Freeman was barely three years old.

When *Meyer left Ohio State in 2018, his offensive coordinator, Ryan Day, was left holding the keys to the Buckeye Nation.  When Notre Dame head coach departed South Bend in 2021 for the greener pastures of Baton Rouge, Marcus Freeman, his defensive coordinator, was left holding the bag.  Freeman went winless in his first three games as coach, none more alarming than a homefield loss to Marshall.

*It’s always been difficult to pin down 

exactly why Urban Meyer left one job or another.

It could have been any number of things: he resigned, he was forced out, 

he was ill, he was burned out, he wanted more family time,

 he had another job lined up, he was going to join the circus …

Meyer has always had such a hard time keeping his stories straight,

 he should have considered running for public office.

Based on their respective levels of experience and gridiron maturity, the outcome of Day and Freeman’s head-to-head encounter seemed pretty obvious, right?  Well, duh.     

***

For the fourth consecutive time in four playoff games, Ohio State scored a touchdown on their first possession – only it didn’t come until the second quarter, because a nine-minute-and-45-second, 75-yard game-opening drive by Notre Dame took up most of the first.  The Buckeyes followed up their first score with two more second quarter touchdowns to take a 21 –7 lead into halftime. 

With 12:46 left in the third quarter, Ohio State built its lead to 31 – 7, at which point the Buckeyes hit the snooze button: wake us when the confetti starts falling.  Bad choice, as their lead shrunk to 31 – 15 by the end of the period, thanks to a Notre Dame touchdown and two-point conversion. 

In the fourth quarter, Notre Dame scored another touchdown and followed it with a second two-point conversion (they made them both look easy, incidentally) to cut Ohio State’s lead to 31 – 23.

That’s when the Buckeyes decided to wake up and make one final, time-consuming drive that forced Notre Dame to exhaust their timeouts.  The drive resulted in a 34-yard field goal and an 11-point lead with 26 seconds left in the game. 

Which is how it ended: Ohio State – 34, Notre Dame – 23.  

As for Ryan Day, who was on shaky ground in Columbus after a loss to Michigan less than two months ago dropped his record against the Wolverines to 1 – 4, he now has his first National Championship – which should shut up his critics for the time being.   

As for Notre Dame, they’ve shown once again they’re incapable of winning the big game.  Credit is due, of course, for getting as far as they did.  They defeated Indiana, Georgia, and Penn State to reach the championship game.  Then again, they shouldn’t have been in the playoffs in the first place.    

I still stand by what I’ve said since the second week of the season: Notre Dame lost to Northern Illinois at home.  That alone should have kept them out of the playoffs.  Besides, they’re not in a conference, thereby getting an annual pass – a bye, if you will – on the weekend of the conference championship games.   

***

Let’s take a look at how the 12-team playoff ‘experiment’ has worked out.   

In round one, all of the higher-seeded teams won (i.e. the teams playing on their home turf won).  Therefore, things went according to plan: i.e. the teams that were supposed to win advanced.

In the round two quarterfinals, all of the teams winning in the first round, who were now the lower-seeded teams, won again.  In this case, things did NOT go according to plan, as the teams ranked in the top four in the playoffs, who all had first round byes, were eliminated right out of the gate.

In the semifinals, the two lower-seeded teams won again, also not according to plan.  And, in case you missed it, not a single conference champion reached this round.   In the final game, the #8 team beat the #7 team, putting an exclamation point on the fallibility (shortcomings?) of the ranking system.   

In no short order, the ranking/seeding system adopted by the playoff committee needs to take a long hard look at their ‘evidence’ before the experiment moves on to its next evolution for the 2025 season – because the teams aren’t following the script.  Also take note that, for whatever reason, television ratings for the playoffs are down this season.  

And while the committee is at it, they might want to consider the possibility of discontinuing the conference championship games.  Do we really need to allow ‘automatic qualifiers’ for the playoffs, as is the case in college basketball?   Take a look at what happened this year: Clemson upset SMU in the ACC championship game and received an automatic berth in the playoffs, thereby kicking more deserving teams – like Alabama and Miami – to the curb.   

And remember, Notre Dame never has to play in one.    

In a press conference leading up to their semifinal game against the Fighting Irish, Penn State coach James Franklin commented that ‘it’s about representing our schools and our conferences,’ before correcting himself with ‘or our conference, excuse me.’    

Although Franklin didn’t mean it as a cheap shot against Notre Dame, I wouldn’t have had a problem with it if he did.

I know it’s just my opinion, but I think this season’s 12-team format gave college football a black eye.  (See: television ratings.)

And with college football already out of control and looking like something out of the wild, wild west, that’s really hard to do.   

So I’ll end with one last opinion, and that is to revert to the old days of picking the two best teams – PERIOD – to play for the National Championship.  No rankings.  No polls.  No convoluted strength of schedule formulas.  No Rorschach tests.  Just a simple eye exam.  

Think about it: the powers-that-be have seen the teams in action throughout the season.  After three months of action, they should have a pretty good idea which two teams should be competing for the National Championship.  So just pick them and be done with it.  

This year my personal eye test singled out Ohio State and Texas, who wound up meeting in the semifinals.  Yes, I realize neither team even won their conference.  And yes, Texas lost to Georgia – twice – and Ohio State lost their two biggest games of the year (Oregon and Michigan).  However – and again, it’s just my opinion – they were the two best teams in the country.  

To the members of the playoff committee: stop thinking so hard.  It’s not rocket science.