Clash of Titans: Ohio State and Notre Dame Battle for National Glory 

Notre Dame needed to enter the third quarter firing on both sides of the ball if they wanted to win this game. The Buckeyes’ game plan to start the third quarter was to control the line of scrimmage by running the ball. Ohio State executed that plan by running the ball 4 times for 75 yards including a 70 yarder by Quishon Judkins who finished the drive with a one yard touchdown. 

The Irish would stall out on their next drive which led to a Buckeyes’ field goal to increase their lead to 24. With 3 minutes left in the third quarter Riley Leonard completed a pass to Jaden Greathouse for a 34 yard touchdown then Riley Leonard completed a pass to Jeremiyah Love for the two-point conversion to make the score 31-15. 

The Notre Dame defense knew that they needed to get a stop on this drive and delivered by recovering a fumble. Their excitement would be short lived because the offense was unable to score a touchdown in the red zone and missed a 27 yard field goal. The Buckeyes were not able to do anything on offense after the missed field goal. 

Notre Dame got the ball back, desperate to stay in this game and displayed a quick touchdown drive including a 30 yard touchdown pass to Jaden Greathouse. They needed to get the two-point conversion to make it a one score game with about 4 minutes left in the game and succeeded thanks to a Jordan Faison pass to Beaux Collins. 

The score was now 31-23 and Ohio State was receiving the ball. Ohio State could feel that they were within minutes of winning the National Championship. To ensure their victory Ohio State kicked a field goal to eliminate Notre Dame’s chances of winning the game. 

The game ended with a final score of 34-23 as the confetti rained down Ohio State was now the 2025 college football national champions. During the trophy presentation the committee announced who won the Offensive and Defensive MVP for the game. The Offensive MVP was quarterback Will Howard who finished the game throwing 17-of-21 for 231 yards and two touchdowns. The Defensive MVP was linebacker Cody Simon who finished the game with eight total tackles. The last thing to do on this historic day for the Buckeyes was to hoist the National Championship trophy and go celebrate surrounded by friends and family after completing their long and hard fought season.

Despite their win many people believe that NIL has benefited some teams more than others. Brady Mutton, English teacher said, “It is positive that these athletes are being compensated for making exuberant amounts of money for their schools. Likewise, they are being compensated for their time commitment on top of their academic workload. Negatively, there is too much transferring and money-chasing. Players see an easy road out and never give themselves a chance to develop and grow in their programs”. 

He also commented on how the NCAA could implement a plan to balance NIL money by saying “there needs to be written contracts that can lock players into schools for X amount of years; this will prevent them from transferring so frequently. There needs to be some sort of salary cap. Although more schools are spending, eventually the rich will get richer and make college football a 12-16 team sport. It hurts the smaller programs when the larger programs can spend millions more”.