There was no dominant team in college football this season, that was until the Ohio State Buckeyes showed up to the College Football Playoff.
Ohio State has steamrolled the competition heading into the CFP National Championship Game, where it faces off against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. In fact, the Buckeyes have looked so good that the college football national championship odds have them as big 8.5-point favorites for this epic title tilt.
Here are three reasons Ohio State will put the finishing touches on a dominant postseason and win this national championship against Notre Dame on Monday, January 20.
Three reasons why Ohio State will win the national championship
1. Jeremiah Smith
The most talented player on the field in this CFP National Championship Game will be wearing an Ohio State Buckeyes jersey. He's also just 19 years old. Of course, I'm talking about phemon wide receiver Jeremiah Smith.
Smith is the complete package at wide receiver. He's 6-foot-3 but can burn anyone with his speed. He's also a nuanced route runner with a high football IQ and does a great job high-pointing the ball with great hands.
Essentially, Smith is what you get if you built a wide receiver in a lab, and the results in his freshman year have been impressive. He's totaled 1,227 yards on 71 receptions and 14 touchdowns, and he’s been a total game-changer in the playoffs.
Smith hauled in 13 Will Howard passes for 290 yards and four touchdowns in Ohio State’s first two rounds where the Buckeyes demolished Tennessee and Oregon.
However, being a game changer doesn’t necessarily mean putting up big numbers. Texas went into the Cotton Bowl with the "Don't let Smith beat us." game plan, throwing two and sometimes three guys Smith's way throughout the game, and holding him to just one catch and three yards.
Expect the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and their top-rated pass defense to do something similar, but just because you plan on shutting down a guy as talented as Smith doesn’t mean you will.
On top of that, committing to shutting down one guy can open up things elsewhere, which is exactly what happened to Texas as the other Ohio State wideouts Emeka Egbuka and Carnell Tate made up for Smith’s lack of production. It could also create some holes in the running game and with the Buckeyes' dynamic running back duo of Quinshon Judkins and TreVeyon Henderson, that could be a problem.
Simply put, Smith is a game-changer and that will manifest itself again on Monday night.
2. Jim Knowles and Ohio State's front seven
It was very fitting that Jack Sawyer effectively ended the Cotton Bowl with an 83-yard fumble return for a touchdown, sealing Texas’ fate and earning Ohio State a spot in the CFP National Championship Game. I say that because while OSU's high-octane offense gets most of the headlines, it's this defense that's powered this run to the natty. And that shouldn’t be unexpected considering the talent on that side of the ball.
The Buckeyes enter this matchup with one of the best defenses in the nation. They're tops in college football when it comes to opponent EPA per play and scoring defense, allowing just 12.2 points per game this season.
Ohio State has allowed more than 17 points in a game just twice this season — both to Oregon — and the second time came almost entirely in garbage time. You certainly can’t blame the embarrassing loss to Michigan on the defense. The Buckeyes allowed just 13 points and 4.0 yards per play in that game.
We really got to see how good this unit could be in the week before when Ohio State hosted a then-undefeated Indiana.
The Hoosiers scored on their very first drive, and then Ohio State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles started to send pressure. Indiana totaled just six yards before a garbage-time touchdown drive in that game. And that set the Buckeyes on this path of dominant defense we've seen since then.
With guys like Sawyer and defensive tackle Tyleik Williams, the Buckeyes can create pressure without blitzing, but when Knowles goes into his bag, he can come up with some exotic blitz packages.
The Buckeyes can stop the run, too. They rank fifth in EPA per rush and second in opponent yards per rush attempt, and stopping the run will be key to shutting down this Irish offense.
No matter what, Knowles will have his defense prepared for this matchup, and if they're focused, this should be the best unit on the field on Monday night.
3. Can anything slow down this Ohio State steamroller?
This college football season was intriguing for a lot of reasons. None the least of which was the fact that there was not one dominant team. Nothing like the recent title-winning Georgia squads or 2020 Alabama, let alone Joe Burrow's LSU squad. That is until the College Football Playoff kicked off.
At the start of the season, everyone knew how good this Ohio State team could be. Some called it one of the most talented rosters ever assembled in Columbus, but questions remained. Was Will Howard the guy the Buckeyes needed under center? And could head coach Ryan Day win the big game?
Those questions became louder after a midseason loss to Oregon, followed by a pair of uninspiring wins over Nebraska and Penn State. And then the sky was falling after the Buckeyes lost their fourth straight game to Michigan. This time at home, as 20-point favorites. To say a switch was flipped since then is an understatement.
Ohio State opened the playoff by crushing a very good Tennessee team 42-17 in the first round. The Buckeyes followed that up by exacting some revenge against Oregon in the Rose Bowl.
The Ducks were the No. 1-ranked undefeated Big Ten champions — and Ohio State won 41-21. That game was not as close as the final score indicated, with the Buckeyes holding a 34-8 lead at halftime.
The 28-14 win over Texas in the Cotton Bowl is probably closer than that score indicates, but Ohio State came up with the explosive plays when they were needed the most.
After all that, the Buckeyes enter the title game against Notre Dame leading the nation in EPA margin in both offense and defense.
It feels as if that loss to Michigan galvanized this team, and we're now getting the best version of the Buckeyes, the one most were expecting when this season started, the one that should've been the best team in the country to begin with. Now, they're one win away from achieving their goal.
