Ohio State is your 2024 national champion, which is the most anticlimactic ending possible. They were the preseason favorite after returning a ton of good players and spending big in the portal to get over the top.
That’s not to say it wasn’t exciting at all. For being the most likely eventual champion, they sure didn’t take the easy path to get there. They took two defeats during the regular season, making them the first two-loss champion since Les Miles’s “undefeated in regulation” 2007 LSU Tigers that beat, of all teams, Ohio State in the BCS title game.
Because they didn’t even play for the Big Ten title, OSU couldn’t get a first round bye in the playoff. And because of their draw, they had to beat (according to the final AP Poll) No. 9 Tennessee and the Nos. 2-4 teams in Notre Dame, Oregon, and Texas. Yikes.
I’ve seen a few places talk about this Ohio State team as having one of the best resumes ever, and they do. Good luck finding anyone else who’s finished No. 1 in the AP Poll and defeated the other three teams in the top four. It’s hard to do what they did, but they did do it.
At the same time, there are a couple of things to keep in mind as we put this team in the proper historical context.
First, Ohio State only was able to rack up such an impressive set of wins because of the new postseason format. They played just three teams in the regular season who finished the year ranked. They did go 2-1 in those games, with the one loss being by a single point to the eventual 13-0 conference champ in Oregon. But they also lost a game to a five-loss Michigan team that had little to speak of at quarterback.
There is nothing particularly special or notable about the Buckeyes’ first 12 games from a historical comparison standpoint. It’s bog standard for college football in the 12-game regular season era. In literally any other season except for this one, the loss to the Wolverines would’ve eliminated them from national championship consideration, and, if this hypothetical was happening in the last 40 years or so, they’d have gone to a nice bowl game as a consolation prize. Maybe even the Rose Bowl, depending on the year.
But keep that in mind: they’d have had one more game to pick up a marquee win. Maybe. Sometimes even the Rose Bowl would have a team from outside the top ten. But that’s all: a maximum of one.
The 12-team format doesn’t guarantee four tries; some teams will get only up to three if they have one of those byes. Penn State lacked a bye but began with SMU and Boise State. Those teams finished No. 12 and No. 8, respectively, in the AP Poll, so they’re not chopped liver. They’re just not anything like, well, any the last three teams that the Buckeyes faced.
The Nittany Lions, in theory, could’ve faced Indiana third, making it three straight teams that aren’t traditional blue bloods and who lacked spectacular regular seasons. Yet by then, the Hoosiers would’ve had to defeat Notre Dame and Georgia to face PSU. Whatever gravitas they didn’t have going into the tournament, they would’ve earned it by then.
The nature of the bracket and its requirements to get in means anyone, even someone with a draw like Penn State’s, would have to pick up a minimum of two great wins to take the trophy home. That matches the old four-team playoff, at least whenever a pretender like 2015 Michigan State didn’t luck its way in.
But that’s the worst-case scenario. There was only one Penn State-like draw this year, and not every year will have such draws. You’re definitely going to need two good wins, and probably three and maybe four to win the title. The format requires it.
I’ll say that again: the format requires it. This brings up the second point.
Supposed you’re doing coin flipping games with some friends. I guess this would have to be a grade school lunch table or something, because who has the time to sit around and flip coins for fun?
But anyway, think of that situation. You’re basically never going to win ten coin flips in a row. You’d have to do an enormous number of coin flip rounds to see anyone win ten in a row, but you’d certainly never expect to see it.
However if you set up a single elimination coin-flipping tournament with 1,024 participants, you’d be guaranteed to see someone win ten coin flips in a row. This event that would never happen naturally would happen with complete certainty because it takes ten rounds to go from 1,024 participants to one.
You’d never see a team finish first and beat Nos. 2-4 and No. 9 in a given regular season. It theoretically could happen with some very aggressive and lucky non-conference scheduling, but you’d never expect to see it.
But, we set up a tournament, and now we got to see it on the first try. Again, like Penn State’s draw, it won’t happen every year that someone gets the chance to do it as Ohio State did this year. The nature of the tournament format means the likelihood of it goes way up, though.
This is not to denigrate OSU’s run. They didn’t just win four tough games in a row in the toughest possible draw, but they won every game by double digits with two of them coming by more than 20. That’s some spectacular work.
All I want to point out is that there are other past champions that would’ve done that too if they had the chance. You think 2019 LSU and 2020 Alabama couldn’t do that? Please. And if Notre Dame had won the title, their Playoff win collection would’ve added one over either No. 2 or No. 3 (Ohio State, if it lost) to go with the victories over the Nos. 5, 6, and 10 teams that it already got. That’s not quite the Buckeyes’ final slate, but it’s pretty darn close.
These are the things I can add to the discourse that in my eyes seems to be lacking most everywhere else. Ohio State does have a resume for the ages, but it’s only because of the new 12-team playoff format. And if OSU didn’t pick up all those impressive wins, someone else would’ve done something very close to it because of the nature of how tournaments work.
Ohio State has an afterglow that no one else will have because this is the first year of the new postseason. No one else will quite have this aura to them because we will get used to seeing champions doing this sort of thing most every season.