College Football Playoff

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ATLANTA, Georgia - Ohio State can once again celebrate a national title after holding off a Notre Dame comeback bid to walk away with a 34-23 victory over the Fighting Irish.

Will Howard hit big-play receiver Jeremiah Smith for 56 yards on a late third-and-11 to lock down a game that had been a laugher, then turned into something else.

Trailing 31-7, Notre Dame scored two touchdowns and two 2-point conversions to make the score 31-23 late in the fourth quarter.

The Irish stopped Ohio State on the first two plays of the next drive and used their timeouts to also stop the clock. But on third down, Howard found Smith in single coverage on the right sideline and dropped his best pass of the season into the hands of the second-team All-American.

It set up a field goal that started the celebration in earnest, closing out a seven-week climb from the depths of a loss to rival Michigan to the top of college football. Ohio State brought home its sixth national championship to the Horseshoe in Columbus and first since the inaugural CFP National Championship in the 2014-15 season.

Howard, a transfer-portal success story from Kansas State, threw for 231 yards and two scores, but nothing will beat the pass to Smith with everything on the line.

The receiver, who had been bottled up by Texas in the Playof Semifinals then fairly quiet for most of the title game, finally got loose for the kind of play he had been making all year. He finished with five catches for 88 yards.

Ohio State scored touchdowns on its first four possessions, then added a field goal on its fifth to take that 31-7 lead.

When Quinshon Judkins (100 yards, 11 carries, three TDs), a transfer from Mississippi, busted a 70-yard run to set up the score that made it 28-7, this game looked over.

Really, though, Ohio State was the better team. The Buckeyes outgained Notre Dame 445 yards to 308. Howard completed his first 13 passes and never really got stopped. The proof: Ohio State punted a grand total of once.

The Buckeyes rolled through four games in the new, 12-team playoff — what great timing for Ohio State — by a combined score of 145-85.

Head Coach Ryan Day joins a list of title-winning coaches with Urban Meyer, Jim Tressel, Woody Hayes and Paul Brown. Also, Day’s .873 winning percentage is third all-time among coaches with 50-plus games — one spot behind none other than the Notre Dame legend Knute Rockne, himself.

This marked the first time the Big Ten has taken back-to-back titles since 1942.

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SCORING SUMMARY

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