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The curtain comes down Monday night on the longest, strangest college football season anyone has ever seen. About the only thing that feels normal about it are the teams playing for the title: Ohio State and Notre Dame.
Two of the country’s most storied programs are set to meet in a title game that wraps up the sport’s first 12-team playoff. The Jan. 20 finish is seven days later than the previous latest finish in history.
[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]This marks Game No. 16 for both teams — a practically unheard of number for a sport that for decades wrapped things up after 11 or 12 games on or around New Year’s Day.
“I feel like we’ve been in the postseason since Week 3,” Notre Dame defensive coordinator Al Golden said.
In most seasons, Week 3 would have marked the end of any championship hopes for the Fighting Irish, whose head coach, Marcus Freeman, could become the first African American coach to capture college football’s top prize.
That was the week after Freeman & Co. lost to small, little-known Northern Illinois. Had the playoff still been a four-team affair, as it had the previous 10 years, it was hard to see any path to a title with that kind of loss on the resume.
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Now that 12 teams are in the mix — a product of years of back-room machinations primed by billions in TV money, some of which will soon go to the players themselves — things have changed. Notre Dame isn’t the only team grateful for that.
Ohio State’s 13-10 loss to rival Michigan on Thanksgiving weekend not only had the feel of a season wrecker, but had people calling for the job of Buckeyes coach Ryan Day.
It was Day’s fourth straight loss to the Wolverines, and this one came with Ohio State as a 20-point favorite and apparently cruising toward a shot at the Big Ten…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/national-championship-game-tap-notre-182843200.html
Author : WSB Cox articles
Publish date : 2025-01-20 18:28:00
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