The Buckeyes navigated a never-before-seen postseason field and emerged victorious.
It wasn’t without its bumps and bruises along the way, but Ohio State’s 34-23 victory over Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff National Championship put an exclamation point on the most impressive title run in the sport’s history. On top of a navigating the first-ever 12-team postseason field, winning four games in a row against high-quality opponents, the Buckeyes accumulated no shortage of historical accolades along the way.
There has never before been a more deserving champion.
For starters, Ohio State played and defeated six of the top eight teams in the final CFP rankings, doing so by an average of almost 17 points. Four of those six wins came in the College Football Playoff, defeating Tennessee (No. 7), Oregon (No. 1), Texas (No. 3) and Notre Dame (No. 5) in succession. The other two came in the regular season, with victories over Penn State (No. 4) and Indiana (No. 8) to add to the ledger.
The only two teams in the top eight that escaped the Buckeyes’ wrath was Georgia (No. 2), whom they did not have to play, and themselves (No. 6).
Ohio State becomes the first team in college football history to knock off five AP Top-5 ranked teams in a single season. Only three teams ever before had defeated four AP Top-5 teams in a single campaign before, with 2019 LSU being the most recent to accomplish such a feat alongside 1967 USC and 1943 Notre Dame. The Buckeyes’ came into Monday night tied for that record, but now own it all to themselves as the only program to play and defeat five opponents of that magnitude over the course of a year.
Ryan Day and Ohio State obviously wouldn’t have been able to achieve this storybook ending if it weren’t for an elite group of players, and those guys made their own history along the way as well.
With their performances against the Fighting Irish, Ohio State became the first program ever to boast four 1,000-yard players in a single season.
Both TreVeyon Henderson and Quinshon Judkins each managed to rush for over 1,000 yards, as Henderson finished with 1,016 yards and 11 total touchdowns and Judkins with 1,060 yards and 16 touchdowns, three of which came against Notre Dame. The Buckeyes also had a pair of 1,000-yard receivers in Jeremiah Smith and Emeka Egbuka. The five-star freshman ultimately finished with 1,315 yards and 15 TDs, while Egbuka racked up 1,011 yards and 10 scores.
That mark comes on top of the myriad of individual history made by this talented collection of guys.
Smith’s historical season has been well-documented, as the 19-year-old put together the greatest freshman season of any wide receiver in Ohio State history — and likely the country. Egbuka, meanwhile, surpassed K.J. Hill as Ohio State’s all-time program record-holder in career receptions with 205 after hauling in six catches for 64 yards against Notre Dame. In addition, Will Howard’s 73% completion percentage is also the best in Ohio State history, beating C.J. Stroud’s mark of 71.9% in 2021.
Ohio State did all of this without its two best offensive linemen, missing starting left tackle Josh Simmons for the final 10 games of the season and starting center Seth McLaughlin for the last five, with both guys out for the entirety of the College Football Playoff. All the other accolades and accomplishments aside, there is a real argument to be made that Donovan Jackson was Ohio State’s MVP this season for the tremendous job he did moving over from guard to tackle.
A lot of guys had to step up in order for the Buckeyes to make it here, and Jackson is chief among that list.
Speaking of stepping up, Jim Knowles deserves a ton of credit for what he was able to do with this Ohio State defense. Following a one-point loss to Oregon back in early October, the Buckeyes made significant changes to its defensive structure. The result was a stretch of seven-straight games without allowing a touchdown pass, and a group that finished the season ranked No. 1 in scoring defense, allowing just 12.9 points per game.
Against its four College Football Playoff opponents — four teams that each averaged more than 32 points per game heading into the CFP — Ohio State allowed an average of 18.8 points, holding both the Volunteers and the Longhorns under 20 points.
In the end, Ohio State can now lay claim as the winners to both the first-ever four-team College Football Playoff and now the first-ever 12-team College Football Playoff. No program in the sport’s history has had to face a gauntlet of four games quite like the Buckeye just did in order to secure a national title, and Ohio State managed to navigate that path while winning each of its four postseason games by double-digits, including a 25-point win over eighth-seeded Tennessee and a 20-point win over No. 1 Oregon.
Ohio State tackled the most difficult test of any national title winner before them, and it passed with flying colors. Ryan Day and the Buckeyes, who experienced perhaps the absolute darkest of days at the end of the regular season, bounced back to achieve the highest of highs. A campaign that looked dead in the water on Nov. 30 turned into one of redemption and glory.
You couldn’t write a better story, and nobody else ever has.
The 2024 Ohio State Buckeyes: the most impressive, deserving and undisputed national champions in college football history.