By Miguel Mike Medina
Ohio State Buckeyes won the national championship by defeating Notre Dame 34-23.
Will Howard and Jeremiah Smith were outstanding. Smith, a freshman, has been playing this entire season, looking like a veteran. Howard completed 81 percent of his passes (17 of 21). Howard will go down as a Buckeye legend, and he played this game with so much poise.
Howard started the game with 13 straight completions, which is insane. He’s also the first transfer quarterback to win the national title in his first year since Cam Newton in 2010 with the Auburn Tigers.
The game’s biggest play was when Smith caught a 56-yard reception for a touchdown on 3rd and 11 with 2:38 left in the game.
Both teams have it all they have on the field. We are going to be seeing a lot of future NFL stars from both teams. The Fighting Irish never gave up. After trailing 31-7, they responded with 16 unanswered points.
The Buckeyes stopped their comeback by picking up first downs and nailing a field goal at the end of the fourth quarter.
Both teams shared unthinkable tough losses this season and used those losses to get far to reach the national title game.
Notre Dame suffered an embarrassing loss to Northern Eastern Illinois in Week 2, and the Buckeyes lost to the Michigan Wolverines. These losses motivated both teams to become better.
Coach Marcus Freeman has nothing to feel bad about. He did make one mistake, however. On 4th and goal at the 9-yard line, he decided the team should kick the field goal instead of going for it. The kicker proceeded to miss the field goal.
Aside from that decision-making, Freeman will be back and will learn from this. We hope he can win a national title with Notre Dame sooner rather than later. He’s a tremendous player-coach.
Coach Ryan Day has been through a lot with this program. The media have heavily criticized him. From 2019 to the present, he has overcome many tough and heartbreaking losses, leaving people to think about whether he can win the ultimate proxy.
As of today, he has silenced those critics. He’s a national champion.
Miguel Mike Medina is the publisher of The MMM Journal. He can be reached at medinamiguelmike@gmail.com and themmmjournal@gmail.com
X: @mmm_sportnfilms, Instagram: @miguel_passionforsports and @themmmjournal, LinkedIn: The MMM Journal, TikTok: @miguelmikemedina
