No one is going to mistake blue bloods Notre Dame and Ohio State for a Cinderella, but the winner of Monday’s College Football Playoff National Championship will complete one of the greatest redemption arcs in modern college football history.
The two programs have long been the target of furious jealousy and vitriol from casual fans, but those blows have softened this year. That’s because, for the first time in a long time, the sport’s postseason has produced two teams that are — dare we say — flawed mortals.
Look past the iconic logos and you will see two underdogs fueled by disappointment and vigor. These teams fought and clawed their way back into the championship hunt with three wins apiece in the new 12-team CFP.
“No great accomplishments are ever achieved without going through adversity,” Ohio State coach Ryan Day said last week. “That’s just the truth. And so we’ve gone through our share of adversity. That’s life.”
You know their stories. Ohio State owns two losses, most notably to unranked rival Michigan at the end of the regular season — a result so shocking it sparked calls for Day’s firing and led to a postgame fight among the rival players. Police deployed pepper spray at midfield, and an embarrassing mark was emblazoned on the Buckeyes’ playoff résumé.
Embracing the pain
Notre Dame suffered the biggest upset loss of the season, falling to Northern Illinois at home as four-touchdown favorites in Week 2. Many wrote off the Irish, chalking it up as yet another disappointing trend for a young coach who also lost to Marshall — another middling program — in his first season two years ago.
Freeman’s message to the Irish, lost in the fog: be grateful and embrace the pain. The Irish have since won 13 straight games, the longest streak in the country.
“It drove us the rest of the year,” Notre Dame quarterback Riley Leonard said. “(Freeman) always said to ‘keep the pain’ before every game. He said, ‘Keep that pain, because you don’t want to have that feeling again.'”
The expanded CFP tested every team in the field and provided an opportunity for growth. One can argue whether the 12-team bracket produced the best two teams in the title game, but it did find the two most resilient.
Consider how Notre Dame started its season losing a starting left tackle, arguably the second-most important position on the field, only to find success with a true freshman. Then, an injury in the playoff took that freshman out of the lineup, along with the team’s sacks leader in defensive tackle Rylie Mills.
“I do think the new format has allowed our team to grow and build throughout the season, and as much as losses hurt, they really allow us as coaches and players to take a hard look at the issues and get them addressed,” Day said. “And then it’s about the business of getting them fixed as time goes on.”
A win Monday would make Notre Dame the most unlikely national champion in the modern era of the BCS and CFP, which began in 1998. Only one team has won the national title after losing as a three-touchdown favorite earlier in the season (Florida in 2008). The Irish were favored by 28 in their 16-14 loss at home to Northern Illinois. The Huskies weren’t special either; they lost to 3-9 Ball State later in the season.
Though Freeman mostly shied away from discussing the loss publicly, he used it to light a fire in the locker room.
“There (were) so many valuable lessons from that game that we have to continue to utilize,” Freeman told ESPN earlier in the postseason. “And you know, it’s a reflection of life. Things don’t always go exactly how you foresee it, but there’s learning opportunities in every event that happens, and sometimes the best learning opportunities come from failure.”
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‘Built for this’
If Notre Dame is the true underdog in this story, Ohio State provides the most embattled and criticized coach. Day entered the season with the derogatory moniker of “Big Game” Day. He was 2-5 against AP top-five teams, and a fourth straight loss to Michigan turned many fans against the sixth-year coach.
Coaches might live in a bubble, but Day’s life is more like a pressure cooker. Just minutes after losing to the Wolverines in November, reporters asked about his job security.
“I told him a long time ago he was built for this,” said offensive coordinator Chip Kelly, the veteran who coached Day at New Hampshire in 1999. “He understands the gravity of what you have to do to be a head coach here. I think he’s handled it tremendously.”
Indeed, Day deserves credit for rebounding the program, even as naysayers point to the obvious: why wouldn’t a roster built with $20 million in NIL money be successful?
“Every game, you’re either trying to prove somebody right or prove somebody wrong, it doesn’t matter when it is, and it will be the same thing in this game here,” Day said this week.
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Finishing the story
Despite all the inherent privilege in the DNA of these blue-blood programs that have combined for 21 national titles, there does seem to be a storybook ending on the line.
Notre Dame is seeking its first title since 1988, and is doing so with the first Black head coach to ever lead a team in the championship — and on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, no less. Freeman has won more games in a single season than any coach in school history (14) and owns more wins against top-five teams in three seasons (three) than his predecessor, Brian Kelly, amassed in 12 years.
“Big Game” Day is one win away from erasing six years of criticism after replacing Urban Meyer, the last coach to win a national title at Ohio State.
Both coaches replaced legends at their schools via in-house promotions as coordinators. Neither seems satisfied with their arcs — not yet at least.
Storylines are designed to fuel hype for big games as outsiders attempt to define men they do not know intimately. Meanwhile, the coaches and players hunker in dark meeting rooms studying hours of game and practice film, only to emerge on the practice field for more work before truly revealing themselves on game day.
“I do not sense any load off of [Day’s] shoulders right now,” Chip Kelly said. “Maybe ask me that question next Tuesday.”
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