Through their respective imperfections, Notre Dame and Ohio State perfectly represent the promise of the 12-team playoff era.
Perfection, or at least close to perfection, has long been the hallmark of college football’s national championships. There are currently no officially recognized two-loss title teams in the sport. Minnesota laid claim to a split championship before losing the Rose Bowl to Washington in 1960, a throwback to the days when the Associated Press declared champions before the postseason.
Creating a playoff, especially a three-round playoff, was a very radical concept for college football. Because the real playoffs are the exact opposite of pursuing perfection.
But single-elimination tournaments are beloved for the chaos that comes from their inherent unpredictability. Every March, millions of people attend the NCAA Tournament to watch small schools from far-flung regions take down giant schools with seemingly limitless resources.
The College Football Playoff could never match Madness for a variety of reasons. Chief among the reasons is that football doesn’t offer the same amount of variability from one game to the next as basketball. But the NFL Playoffs, which begin just as the College Football Playoffs are ending, delivered plenty of drama, including wild card entrants going on to play in the Super Bowl.
The first 12-team playoff championship game is a matchup much more similar to the NFL postseason than the college football finals of the past. The College Football Playoff could be even more chaotic considering the Super Bowl has never pitted two wild card teams head-to-head.
Notre Dame and Ohio State are both wild card participants in their version of the College Football Playoff.
Ohio State looked like the most vulnerable candidate for disappointment in its loss to Michigan in the regular season finale, but ended up playing arguably the best football of any team on the field. The Buckeyes avenged a regular-season loss to Oregon in dominant fashion in the Rose Bowl, beating Tennessee, and then showed their ability to win in crunch time in the Cotton Bowl.
Will Howard’s fourth-down carry wasn’t the 85-yarder through South Central, but the quarterback’s 18-yard pickup to extend the drive with a Quinshon Judkins touchdown may be the stuff of Ohio State legend.
Or at least it would be if Jack Sawyer didn’t provide the final order of the playoffs. While Texas pushed for a potential game-tying touchdown, his pressure on Quinn Ewers resulted in an exclamation point scoop-and-score strip sack that put them just one victory away from an unprecedented national championship.
The Buckeyes are a classic wild card team. This is undoubtedly a talented team that is making great strides at the right time. Notre Dame is a wild card in another sense, having achieved one of the longest winning streaks in the country while making the playoffs while enduring mounting injuries and possible flu outbreaks.
Even if winning a Fighting Irish championship would maintain college football’s long tradition of winning a title by going 1 or undefeated, Coach Marcus Freeman’s team is an undeniable wild card.
By sticking to its tradition of independence, Notre Dame cannot earn one of the automatic bids. In any case, it doesn’t follow the current rules of the system. But the Fighting Irish, ranked fifth in the tournament, would not have played at all despite reeling off 10 straight wins to close the regular season.
That streak, now at 13 games ahead of the National Championship Game, began after perhaps the only loss of the 2024 season more questionable than Ohio State’s loss to Michigan.
A 16-14 loss at Northern Illinois in Week 2 gave Notre Dame the sort of imperfection on its resume that would have been too ugly for the Fighting Irish to overcome in college football’s past.
“It’s in the toughest moments that you learn the most about yourself,” Freeman said after his team’s 27-24 Orange Bowl victory over Penn State. “We had some down moments, but we had some really down moments in Week 2 and these guys fought.”
Irish quarterback Riley Leonard’s individual effort in the Orange Bowl served as a microcosm of Notre Dame’s entire season. It was a rough start with early interceptions and injury concerns, but ultimately resulted in a big win.
Leonard’s throw-and-catch connection with Jaden Greathouse turned into a 54-yard game-tying touchdown, but it wasn’t the game-winning play. Notre Dame still needed a Drew Allar interception by Christian Gray to set up a decisive Mitch Jeter field goal.
But the touchdown reception that made it 24-24 was the moment that ended the Orange Bowl semifinal. For all the flaws that could have denied the Fighting Irish a championship in the past, they overcame them in the 2024 season to earn themselves this title opportunity.
Neither Notre Dame nor Ohio State are perfect. And it perfectly reflects what the new-look playoffs mean.
