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ATLANTA — The pass seemed to hang up there forever. Did it feel like seven weeks? Did it feel like 10 years?
What a great debate for Ohio State fans to have forever.
When that teardrop of a throw from Buckeyes quarterback Will Howard on third-and-11 finally landed, light as a feather, in the hands of receiver Jeremiah Smith late in the fourth quarter Monday, Ohio State had locked up what would be a 34-23 victory over Notre Dame for its sixth national title and first in 10 years.
It was that 56-yard gain that snuffed out a feverish Notre Dame comeback and made the Buckeyes the champion of the sport's first 12-team playoff, just as they were champions of its first four-team tournament a decade ago.
"They were running man coverage and I said, 'Hey, I'm gonna let this loose and let him make a play on it,'" Howard said of a play that felt about 100 years removed from Ohio State's once program-defining "Three yards and a cloud of dust."
This was a win that hardly anyone thought possible a mere seven weeks ago — Nov. 30 — when a 13-10 loss to Michigan led to a near-riot on the field and questions over whether coach Ryan Day would keep his job when the calendar flipped.
"It's a great story about a bunch of guys who have just overcome some really tough situations, and with the point where there's a lot of people that counted us out (they) just kept swinging and kept fighting," Day said.
It might be that much sweeter because of how it went down.
Trailing 31-7, Notre Dame scored two touchdowns and two 2-point conversions to make it a one-score game late in the fourth quarter. The in-stadium camera found legendary Irish coach Lou Holtz in his luxury box, and he ignored all those booing Buckeye fans and flashed a thumbs-up.
But Notre Dame's time was running out. After stopping the Buckeyes on their first two plays and using their timeouts, the Irish put Christian Gray — whose interception wrapped up Notre Dame's semifinal win over Penn State — in single coverage on Smith.
Smith got behind Gray on the right sideline and Howard 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, and also helped Ohio State cover the 8 1/2-point spread at BetMGM Sportsbook.
"It was do or die, it was that type of down," Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman said. "He's a heck of a player. He's difficult to cover."
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 semifinals then fairly quiet for most of this game, finally got loose for the kind of play he's 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.
When Quinshon Judkins (100 yards, 11 carries, three TDs), a transfer from Mississippi who highlighted Ohio State's judicious use of the ever-growing portal, busted a 70-yard run to set up the score that made it 28-7, this game looked over.
It wasn't, and now Freeman will have to answer a few tough questions — one about the failed fake punt in the third quarter that turned into a field goal for a 31-7 lead; the other about sending Mitch Jeter in for a short field goal attempt while down 16 and facing fourth-and-goal from the 9. It might have looked like a better call had Jeter's kick not clanged off the left upright.
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. Ohio State punted a grand total of once.
The Buckeyes rolled through four games in the new, expanded playoff — what great timing for Ohio State, which didn't even play for the Big Ten title — by an average score of 36-21.
Ohio State was seeded eighth in the tournament, but the seedings were pretty much meaningless. The worse seed won every game in the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds, and the Buckeyes dominated in this title-game showdown of No. 7 vs. No. 8.
It puts to rest, for now, any angst about that 13-10 Michigan loss in November — Ohio State's fourth straight in the series — that ended with a brawl after Wolverine players tried to plant a flag at midfield. The whole scene left a lot of folks, both in and out of Buckeye circles, thinking Day, in his sixth season, had outlived his usefulness on a campus that hadn't tasted a title in a decade.
Instead, the Ohio State marching band can dot the "I" with the national-title trophy. And Day can join a list of title-winning coaches with Urban Meyer (2014) Jim Tressel (2002), Woody Hayes ("Three yards and a cloud of dust") and Paul Brown (who went on to found the NFL's Cleveland Browns).
Also, Day's .873 winning percentage coming into the game was third among coaches with 50-plus games — one spot behind none other than the Notre Dame legend Knute Rockne, himself.
College football still has never had a Black coach win the national title. Freeman was trying to become the first.
Instead, another kind of history. This marked the first time the Big Ten has taken back-to-back titles since 1942. Last year's champion was Michigan, which was sitting home watching this one, but still played a special role in a Buckeyes redemption story hardly anyone saw coming.
