At the beginning of the tournament you had the option on betting sites to pick an overall winner of the tournament before any games had been played. Certain teams like Georgia and Oregon weren't paying out very well, with Oregon, who was the darling of the pundits all season, was only paying out at 1.7 to 1 yet a lot of people still took that bet and a lot of people lost their bets in the very first game that Oregon played. I believe that Georgia, especially since their starting QB was out for the rest of the season, should have been paying out better than the 2.6 odds that it was paying.
I like to be a maverick when it comes to these sorts of things because I never bet very much money and would prefer to have a long shot with tremendous odds. Notre Dame, a team that I have always been a halfway fan of, was ranked at 30:1 so I put $10 on them to win the entire tournament and the national championship. I came damn close to that coming true but one the field yesterday, and especially in the first half, Ohio State definitely looked like the far superior team that was well worth a national championship.
Because of real life obligations and because I don't really enjoy 3 hours of commercials that occasionally has some football going on, I didn't even turn up to the game until the start of the second half. I did have notifications activated on my phone though and that was depressing enough since other than the first TD of the game which was scored by Notre Dame on their very first possession, the dings were all notifications to let me know that Ohio State was absolutely dominating the game in all aspects.
The 2nd quarter in particular was just, urgh. I am happy I was not at the bar with my friends during that as OSU scored 3 straight. It was just one after another and when I arrived at the bar my friends, who were mostly supporting ND, had dour looks on their faces and told me that it has been frustrating and very one-sided.
In the 2nd half, Notre Dame seemed to have made some changes to their strategy and OSU made a couple of mistakes including a pretty clutch fumble that was forced by a very accurate hit by a linebacker (I think) in the secondary and this was after scoring a TD with a successful 2-point conversion.
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Seriously, this was a masterclass in defense here as the defender smacked the absolute crap out of the ball just a split second before the receiver was downed
You know that the team you are supporting is in deep trouble when they are going for it on 4th down in the 3rd quarter even when they are deep into their own side of the field. This gamble paid off for them the first time they did it, but it did not the second time. Regardless, Notre Dame played excellently in the second half and at one point got the game back to just 8 points from being tied. This meant that they just needed to do one more of what they had done 2x in a row already, which is to score a TD and get another 2-point conversion after.
Things looked like ND might have one more chance at it but OSU was playing smart football late in the 4th and was effectively burning the clock. When they decided to go for a field goal with less than a minute left in the game and nailed it, it was then mathematically impossible for Notre Dame to win the game outside of some sort of intervention from the heavens.
A 33-yard field goal is just a "gimme" for basically any kicker playing in college or above. There wasn't really any doubt that this was going to end the game and it did, putting OSU up by 11 with 29 seconds left on the clock. Notre Dame tried a few long passing plays after this but honestly, I could kind of see that the players were already demoralized because they knew the statistical near impossibility of this turning into a win even if they did score a TD. If they had, and even if they then converted a 2-point conversion, they would have had to pull off a successful onside kick and then run the ball back to field goal range. They needed to do all of this in less than 30 seconds with no remaining time outs. Basically, this has never happened in football.
I applaud the 2nd half effort by the Fighting Irish, but that 2nd quarter where everything went OSU's way basically sealed the deal. It was already over before halftime.
I don't like that the game went this way, and I really would have enjoyed getting my 30 to 1 payoff from my long-shot bet, but at least there isn't any doubt: Ohio State is definitely the best team in the nation and are very deserving of the title. In fact, if they hadn't won, Notre Dame would have been considered a Cinderella fluke with a win here. I do love the fact that the bracket playoff system has proven to be a success because had it not existed in the 12-team capacity that it did this year, the first year that they have done this, neither Notre Dame nor Ohio State would have even been considered for national champion.
The 2nd half was really exciting football, it's just a shame that the 1st half was so one-sided that it really didn't matter what happened in the 2nd half.
Well done OSU, it is deserved. Now let's bring on the rest of the NFL playoffs where hopefully Philadelphia gets eliminated :P