ON TODAY'S SCORECARD
Championship Game by the Numbers

This year's College Football Playoff National Championship will likely be one for the books, as Big Ten powerhouse Ohio State takes on one of the most storied programs in the sport's history in Notre Dame.

Quarterback Will Howard and freshman phenom Jeremiah Smith lead Ryan Day's squad, outscoring its opponents by an average margin of 19.7 points per game in the CFP.

Conversely, Riley Leonard and Jeremiyah Love lead Marcus Freeman's team, which is looking to become the 10th underdog to win the national title in the CFP/BCS era and the first since Clemson in 2018.

Here are the numbers to know ahead of tonight’s championship tilt:

0:00: Ohio State has not trailed for a single second in the CFP and has only trailed for 76:35 all season, ranking second in FBS behind Ole Miss (56:25).

2: Since the FBS/FCS split up in 1978, Ohio State is just the second team to have four wins against top-five AP-ranked opponents (Indiana, Penn State, Oregon, Texas). A win against Notre Dame would be the first with five wins in a single season.

4: Notre Dame is one of just four Power 4 or Independent programs to have eight or more wins in the past five seasons, joining Alabama, Clemson, and Georgia.

5: Five former Ohio State players turned coaches have faced their alma mater, and they are 5-18-1 in those games. The list includes Freeman (0-2 with Notre Dame), Luke Fickell (0-1 at Cincinnati and 0-1 at Wisconsin), Glen Mason (1-7 at Minnesota), Gary Moeller (0-3 at Illinois, 3-1-1 at Michigan) and Bo Pelini (1-3 at Nebraska).

7-4: Day's record in postseason games at Ohio State (2-0 in Big Ten title games, 5-4 in CFP games). He also joined Urban Meyer as the only Ohio State coach with at least 13 wins in two seasons.

12.2: The number of points Ohio State holds opponents to per game is the best mark of any team in FBS this season. Notre Dame ranks second at 14.3 points per game allowed.

13: Notre Dame safety Xavier Watts has 13 interceptions since the start of the 2023 season — the most of any player in FBS in that span. He's also the only player to eclipse the double-digit mark in the category.

14: Freeman has 14 wins vs. AP-ranked opponents in his career, tied with Georgia for the most of any program since 2022. That's also more ranked wins than any other Notre Dame head coach in the first three years of their tenure.

32: Jeremiah Smith needs 32 receiving yards to break the Big Ten single-season record by a freshman, a record currently held by Rondale Moore (1,258 in 2018).

50: TreVeyon Henderson needs two more touchdowns to become the third player in Ohio State history to reach 50 career scrimmage touchdowns, joining Keith Byars (50) and Pete Johnson (58).

95: Emeka Egbuka needs 95 receiving yards to break the school career record held by Michael Jenkins (2,898). He also needs three catches to break the Ohio State record for receptions, held by K.J. Hill (201).

1,000: Ohio State could have four 1,000-yard performers in one season, which would be the first time that has happened in program history; Smith already has eclipsed 1,000 yards receiving, Egbuka needs 53 receiving yards to reach it, Henderson needs 33 rushing yards, and Quinshon Judkins needs 40 rushing yards.

13,167: Notre Dame's last college football title came against West Virginia in the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 2, 1989. On Jan. 20th, it will be a whopping 13,167 days since that title.

Favorites are 9-1 SU and 8-2 ATS in this year's College Football playoff.

They'd be undefeated if it weren't for a surge of late money a week ago Thursday that made Penn State a slight favorite over Notre Dame before kickoff.

TRENDING TODAY
Count Me In

This week, the 16-game march to Atlanta for the College Football Playoff national championship allowed a pathway for Notre Dame’s 6' 7", 328-pound offensive left tackle Charles Jagusah to return to the lineup from a pectoral injury suffered in August.

Jagusah was supposedly lost for the season. It was a massive blow to Notre Dame’s hopes before the season. It was one of the longest seasons in college football history, and it became an asset.

He will make his first season start in the national title game, saw action in the Orange Bowl only due to starting guard Rocco Spindler’s ankle injury. Spindler is set to return against the Buckeyes.

On the flip side, Ohio State has revealed major injury updates on a couple of their star players heading into the National Championship Game.

The Buckeyes have received very positive injury news in the lead-up to the National Championship Game, as both defensive end JT Tuimoloau and cornerback Denzel Burke will be on the field for Ohio State in the national title game.

In the meantime, Paul Finebaum, a notable college football analyst, says he doesn't think the Fighting Irish stand a chance. “To me, this looks like the first couple of games by Ohio State."

It’s a good thing Finebaum doesn’t handicap college football games for a living.

Meanwhile, both teams will play 16 games this season. Neither team played in a Week 0 game nor a conference championship game, which could have extended the season further. That’s a lot for anybody in the sport and a big reason college football programs have adjusted their routines as the weather has grown colder as the season progresses.

“We started at the end of the season and worked our way back. So there was a lot of things that we put in place to try to help with that,” Ohio State coach Ryan Day said. “I don’t think it’s a secret anymore, but one of the things in particular was on offense we didn’t play as fast to cut down on the number of overall snaps to make sure our depth was where it needed to be, the way we practiced, the sports science of it all.

Fewer snaps played during practice and games helped the Buckeyes enter Monday night as healthy as they have been all year.

Shelly from Chicago wanted to say – I saw the interview with Lions’ head coach Dan Campbell following Detroit’s surprising loss to Washington. He sure seemed shaken up.

Marc Says: As the No. 1 seed with a 15–2 record, there was a lot of pressure and high expectations put on the Lions to advance to the Super Bowl. Campbell was drained and visually emotional, taking the blame for the Lions' loss. He started crying and getting emotional when talking about how much work the players put into getting to this point. Entering this season, the record of #1 seeds in the NFC Divisional Round of the NFL playoffs was 29-12, with a win percentage of 70.7%.