College Football

How Notre Dame, Ohio State rebounded from gut-wrenching losses to reach national title

Updated Jan. 20, 2025 12:58 p.m. ET

Michael Cohen

College Football and College Basketball Writer

Laken Litman

College Football & Soccer Analyst

RJ Young

FOX Sports National College Football Analyst

The inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff has given us plenty of excitement and fascinating storylines.

On Monday night at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta (7:30 p.m. ET), Ohio State will battle Notre Dame and college football fans will get the chance to see how this story ends.

It's Marcus Freeman vs. Ryan Day. It's Riley Leonard vs. Will Howard. It's two of the most storied programs in the sport fighting for a chance to be crowned national champions, with Ohio State's last national title coming in 2014 and Notre Dame seeking its first since 1988.

FOX Sports college football writers Laken Litman, RJ Young and Michael Cohen are here to answer everything you need to know ahead of Monday night's national championship game.

Let's get to it!

Both Riley Leonard and Will Howard are veteran transfer quarterbacks who left their respective Power 4 programs for a chance to win a national championship. Is this a trend that we should expect to see moving forward?

Laken Litman: It's certainly been a trend and will remain one moving forward. While they aren't playing for a national championship, Texas' Quinn Ewers, Oregon's Dillon Gabriel and Arizona State's Sam Leavitt all led their teams to the playoff after transferring from one power conference to another. Looking ahead to next year, that's what Carson Beck – who recently transferred from Georgia to Miami – will hope to do.

Riley Leonard and Will Howard are hardly trendsetters, but they are proof that players can use the transfer portal to their advantage and enhance their careers.

RJ Young: I don't think it's a trend anymore as the cost of housing continues to rise and inflation continues to increase. I think the one-year rental is becoming an attractive way to succeed in modern college football. But it can't just be any QB. In cases like Howard, Leonard, Gabriel, Indiana's Kurtis Rourke or Miami's Cam Ward, you're not just seeing any experienced quarterback earn that one-year opportunity to feature at programs like Ohio State and Notre Dame but players who have been multi-year starters, sometimes with more than 30 starts, become commodities for programs who believe they're a quarterback away from playing in the CFP or winning the whole thing.

The best example of this is Beck, who led Georgia to back-to-back SEC Championship Game appearances with one win. But look a little further down the pecking order, and you'll find Duke earning a transfer from former Tulane QB Darin Mensah for a reported $8 million, in large part so that the Blue Devils know who their starter is not just in 2025, but 2026. In the age of revenue-sharing and name, image and likeness deals leading to seven-figure sums for QBs, this is the new normal.

Michael Cohen: Teams that employed a one-year rental philosophy at quarterback were certainly rewarded in the first year of an expanded 12-team playoff. Howard at Ohio State, Leonard at Notre Dame, Gabriel at Oregon and Rourke at Indiana all invigorated their respective programs with an immediacy that will surely catch the eyes of coaches around the country. That one-fourth of the teams in this year's College Football Playoff invoked a similar strategy at the game's most important position is anything but a coincidence. The maturity, poise and leadership all four quarterbacks brought to their new schools was lauded with the same reverence teammates and coaches used to describe the on-field impact that was obvious for everyone to see.

It's worth noting, however, that Gabriel (previously at UCF and Oklahoma) and Rourke (Ohio) were both in their sixth seasons of college football after choosing to capitalize on the extra year of eligibility afforded to players who were on rosters during the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign. And Howard, whose collegiate career will come to a close Monday night against Notre Dame, exercised that same option to move from Kansas State to Ohio State for a fifth and final season. So, while the value of a veteran quarterback with multiple seasons of experience will always be high across college football, especially as revenue sharing is expected to arrive later this year and high-end schools have more money to burn, the run of sixth-year players should be coming to an end now that the pandemic is far enough in the rearview mirror. The pendulum should swing ever so slightly back toward multi-year development, though proven transfers will still command the biggest price tags in the portal.

Marcus Freeman played at Ohio State from 2005-08 and started his coaching career there as a graduate assistant in 2010. Does that give him any type of advantage in this matchup, and what is the emotional factor of playing against your alma mater in a game of this magnitude?

Michael Cohen: For Marcus Freeman, the sentimental side of coaching against his alma mater in a national championship game might have generated stronger pull if this was the first time he'd faced the Buckeyes as a head coach. But Freeman replaced former coach Brian Kelly at the tail end of the 2021 season and was immediately greeted by a home-and-home series that matched the Fighting Irish with Ohio State in consecutive years, first in Columbus on Sept. 3, 2022, and then in South Bend on Sept. 23, 2023. The Buckeyes won both of those games by scores of 21-10 and 17-14, respectively, with the latter producing an all-time clip of head coach Ryan Day calling out former Notre Dame head coach Lou Holtz, who'd previously questioned Ohio State's toughness, in an emotional postgame interview that set social media ablaze.

With those two experiences under his belt, albeit a pair of hard-fought losses, Freeman is unlikely to be fazed when he sees the Scarlet and Gray uniforms on the opposite sideline at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Monday night. One of the prevailing storylines from this year's College Football Playoff is how coolly Freeman has comported himself on the sidelines in high-pressure situations, most notably against Georgia head coach Kirby Smart and Penn State head coach James Franklin during the last two rounds. The unflappable demeanor he's exhibited despite all the pressure heaped on every head coach at Notre Dame — not to mention the looming possibility of Freeman becoming the sport's first Black and Asian American head coach to win a national title — has been highly impressive. It's one of the reasons why even the Chicago Bears reportedly wish to interview Freeman for their own head-coaching vacancy.

Laken Litman: It definitely does not give him any type of advantage. As far as emotions go, Freeman will try to downplay the significance and make it a non-story leading up to the title game. But while there's surely some deep-down pulling of the heart strings, he's already gotten playing his alma mater out of the way.

Not counting the 2021 season bowl game after Brian Kelly left for LSU, Freeman's first game as the head coach of Notre Dame was a homecoming in Columbus. The Buckeyes beat the Fighting Irish to open the 2022 season, 21-10. In the rematch in South Bend a year later, Lou Holtz called out Ryan Day and the Buckeyes' toughness and OSU responded with a 17-14 win. The game was decided in the final minute when Ohio State scored the winning touchdown after Notre Dame only had 10 players on the field.

Of course, Freeman would not like to go 0-3 against Ohio State. But he's probably thinking more along the lines of wanting to win a national championship no matter who the opponent is.

RJ Young: I don't think there's an advantage or disadvantage for Freeman on the field because he played and coached at Ohio State. And it's not as if Freeman didn't watch defensive coordinator Al Golden coach one hell of a game against his alma mater, Penn State, in the Orange Bowl. I believe knowing Freeman played and coached in the Scarlet and Gray is a brilliant storyline but not one that will have bearing in the game.

Notre Dame currently sits at 14-1 with its lone loss coming against Northern Illinois, where the Fighting Irish were 28-point favorites. Ohio State currently sits at 13-2 with its losses coming against Oregon and rival Michigan, where the Buckeyes were 19.5-point favorites. How did both of these programs rebound from those losses to get to this point where they are now?

RJ Young: Succinctly, each leaned into its strength. The Fighting Irish built an identity on running the ball, preventing turnovers and stifling defense. Because their loss came early in the season against a program that had no business beating ND — let alone at home — their backs were against the wall for the better part of three months. It also helped ND that Army and Navy were ranked opponents on the schedule when the committee finally put together the 12-team field.

Ohio State found out just how vanilla its defense was against Oregon, and then became more unpredictable and aggressive as a result. Offensively, a big win against Indiana perhaps provided a false security for the Buckeyes that they could run the ball against a talented defensive front like Michigan's rather than lean into the gaudy advantage they have at wide receiver. Heading into the CFP national title game, we've seen the Buckeyes sack QBs at least four times in the last three games and offensive coordinator Chip Kelly is willing to let Howard spin it vertically to his receivers, and the score has reflected those changes.

Michael Cohen: With each successive victory by Notre Dame and Ohio State in this year's College Football Playoff, the earlier defeats to Northern Illinois and Michigan, respectively, seem more and more like uncharacteristic blips. For the Fighting Irish, who lost 16-14 to the Huskies on Sept. 7 before reeling off 13 consecutive wins, the result was something of an aberration. It remains the only game all season in which Notre Dame's stellar defense failed to create a takeaway, ultimately losing the turnover battle 2-0, and it was only the second time all year that quarterback Riley Leonard tossed multiple interceptions, with the other such outing coming in the Orange Bowl against Penn State.

For the Buckeyes, who lost 13-10 to Michigan in their regular-season finale, a fourth consecutive defeat to The Team Up North, the performance felt like a mental block that had come to life. Head coach Ryan Day and offensive coordinator Chip Kelly were hellbent on running the ball between the tackles against a team with two potential first-round picks along the interior of its defensive line in Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant. While the defense coordinated by Jim Knowles failed again when it mattered most, this time surrendering an 11-play, 57-yard field goal drive with :45 remaining. Since that fateful afternoon, nothing about the game plans or levels of execution that Ohio State has put forth in three convincing College Football Playoff victories has remotely resembled that debacle in late November.

This quote from Day on a Zoom call last week sums up what has happened for both programs: "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. And then it's about the business of getting them fixed as time goes on. I think that's really been the biggest thing that I've learned about this format, which I think has been great for our players. I think it's great for college football."

Laken Litman: While no team ever wants to lose – and while Ohio State never wants to lose to Michigan – the adversity served each program well.

Notre Dame didn't lose again after that home-opening embarrassment. Because the Irish aren't in a conference, they knew they couldn't slip up even a little bit the rest of the season. So they found ways to win all year and made it to the CFP. As for the Buckeyes, that was an angry team after being upset by the Wolverines at home. And not only that, they wanted to prove something after the whole flag planting fiasco. Ever since that game, OSU has looked like a changed team and one that seems destined to win the national championship.

Laken Litman covers college football, college basketball and soccer for FOX Sports. She previously wrote for Sports Illustrated, USA Today and The Indianapolis Star. She is the author of "Strong Like a Woman," published in spring 2022 to mark the 50th anniversary of Title IX. Follow her at @LakenLitman.

RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports and the host of the podcast "The Number One College Football Show." Follow him at @RJ_Young.

Michael Cohen covers college football and basketball for FOX Sports with an emphasis on the Big Ten. Follow him at @Michael_Cohen13.

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