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ATLANTA – Both Ohio State and Notre Dame will break a threshold Monday night that no college programs have ever reached. And they don’t need to be reminded of what it means to get ready for their 16th game this season means because their bodies are doing it for them.
“Anybody that says they’re 100 percent that’s been playing is lying. Offense, defense, Ohio State, anybody — they’re lying,” Notre Dame defensive tackle Howard Cross said. “Especially this long. This is uncharted territory for everybody. But you’ve just got to keep pushing. At this point, it’s just who lasts longer.”
With college athletes now earning money through name, image and likeness deals and soon to receive revenue sharing checks via the House vs. NCAA settlement, we don’t hear much anymore about how the length of the college football season impacts player health.
But the 12-team College Football Playoff, and likelihood that most teams who get this far will play 16 or 17 games, is the now arguably the most important factor in how to build a championship roster and to keep it relatively healthy through a longer grind than any college program has ever faced.
Notre Dame defensive lineman Howard Cross III (56) is tended to by trainers after an injury against Georgia during the 2025 Sugar Bowl at Caesars Superdome.
In fact, the possibility of playing this much football factored so heavily into how Ohio State approached the season that head coach Ryan Day deliberately slowed down the pace of the Buckeyes’ offense in hopes of reducing wear and tear and keeping players as fresh as possible for the postseason run.
“You save 10 plays a game, you save 150 plays (a season),” Ohio State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles said. “Everything is set up by him from the jump of a long season.”
The numbers aren’t quite that dramatic. Heading…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/college-football-playoff-now-survival-110640402.html
Author : USA TODAY Sports
Publish date : 2025-01-19 11:06:00
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