College Football

ATLANTA — It was third-and-11 with the College Football Playoff National Championship in the balance, and Ohio State had twice fecklessly run into the teeth of a Notre Dame defense that was trying desperately to get off of the field. Someone had to make a play, and on this Ohio State team who else would you expect to be called …

ATLANTA — Here are five things we learned from No. 8 Ohio State’s 34-23 win over No. 7 Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff final on Monday night: Ohio State Buckeyes earned the title This group navigated an unprecedented stretch to win a national championship. It took four postseason wins for them to lift the trophy, including toppling three …

ATLANTA — Marcus Freeman peered behind the barricade outside the Notre Dame locker room, his eyes trained on a television screen screwed into a concrete wall in the bowels of Mercedes-Benz Stadium. On the screen, Ohio State coach Ryan Day was readying himself to hoist the national championship trophy after holding off a furious comeback by the Irish in a …

The Ohio State Buckeyes are the first-ever College Football Playoff National Champions of the 12-team era. Caroline Fenton, Jason Fitz & Adam Breneman react to the biggest game of the season as Ohio State beats Notre Dame 34-23. Buckeye QB Will Howard led his team to victory in a nearly perfect performance behind yet another new Ohio State offensive line …

ATLANTA — Watching Ohio State this last month in the College Football Playoff was like watching an aircraft carrier turn on a dime. How can one coach be so vilified and then legendary in the same seven-week period? Ain’t that America — or Ohio State.  Maybe both.  “Everyone is saying you’re wonderful and you’re really not,” former coach Jim Tressel …

ATLANTA — Fourth down has been the friend of Notre Dame football all year, and it was again at times in Monday’s 34-23 loss to Ohio State in the CFP national championship. It just wasn’t in the second half on two occasions when the Irish needed it to be. Trailing 28-7 with more than 11 minutes left in the third …

Getty Images Ohio State coach Ryan Day and a handful of players were caught up in a golf cart accident while traversing between media responsibilities after the Buckeyes’ College Football Playoff National Championship victory over Notre Dame.  Day, quarterback Will Howard, linebacker Cody Simon and a few others were aboard the cart driven by an operations staffer heading to interviews. …

ATLANTA — Will Howard, like us all, has felt lost many times in life. He felt lost as a freshman at Kansas State, when COVID isolated so many and left him living alone before being thrust — well before he was ready — into the starting job. He felt lost two years later, when, finally prepared for the starting gig …

Ohio State coach Ryan Day celebrated his team after the Buckeyes captured the 2025 College Football Playoff National Championship with a 34-23 win over Notre Dame on Monday. Despite losing a pair of regular-season games, the Buckeyes fought back from the 8-seed and blew past the competition en route to the program’s first title in a decade.  “After all the …

ATLANTA — At Notre Dame, the bar for legendary status is high. This is the school that gave us Rudy, after all, and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and Knute Rockne, and “Win One For The Gipper.” You’ve got to work hard to etch your name alongside those legends. That said … leading your team to a stunning touchdown, …

Getty Images Ohio State became just the fifth team in the AP poll era to win the national championship without winning its conference’s title as the Buckeyes beat Notre Dame 34-23 on Monday in the College Football Playoff National Championship. The Buckeyes not only failed to win the Big Ten championship, but they didn’t even appear in the league title game. …

Ohio State’s 34-23 win against Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff championship game will earn the Buckeyes a spot in history as the first champion in the 12-team playoff format. Ohio State was also the first winner of the four-team playoff tournament, so this is becoming a bit of a trend. But where do the Buckeyes rank among the …

1 The Arch Manning Era begins with all the expected hype. Thanks for the memories, Quinn Ewers, but the ‘Horns will be more dangerous at quarterback because of Manning’s overall athleticism and smarts. Steve Sarkisian gets back national freshman of the year Colin Simmons at defensive end as well as star linebacker Anthony Hill. Injured running back C.J. Baxter should …

The bitter cold temperatures in central Ohio didn’t keep Ohio State students inside after the Buckeyes secured the College Football Playoff national title late Monday night. Within minutes of the clock ticking down on the Buckeyes’ 34-23 victory over the Irish, students were flooding out across the Columbus campus, quickly making their way to the gates of Ohio Stadium. Chants …

Trying to figure out who owns the most national championships in college football is not for the weak of heart. The sport has changed considerably since the sport’s inaugural season — 1869 — when Princeton and Rutgers played twice and, conveniently, split those two games. For decades after that, even as the sport expanded, the definition of “champion” remained uncertain. …