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Topic: #8 Ohio State 34, #7 Notre Dame 23 Post Game

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FearlessF

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Re: #8 Ohio State 34, #7 Notre Dame 23 Post Game
« Reply #196 on: January 21, 2025, 11:24:22 PM »
Finebaum thinks that Notre Dame is in the Big Ten :o
they should be and will be some fine day
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OrangeAfroMan

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Re: #8 Ohio State 34, #7 Notre Dame 23 Post Game
« Reply #197 on: January 22, 2025, 12:07:02 AM »
It's funny, if OSU fans were sane, this NC would feel a lot more ho-hum.  But to be fair:
a) no fanbase of a big-boy program is sane
and
b) this is the first season of that 2nd loss not mattering at all
.
Yeah, yeah, I know it was against TTUN and all, but unlike those multiple 90s seasons, this time it didn't cause a scarlet-and-grey train derailment.  It simply gave Oregon a tougher path, lol.

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MrNubbz

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Re: #8 Ohio State 34, #7 Notre Dame 23 Post Game
« Reply #199 on: January 22, 2025, 05:12:28 AM »
It's funny, if OSU fans were sane
Just stop right there
"Let us endeavor so to live - that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." - Mark Twain

Honestbuckeye

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Re: #8 Ohio State 34, #7 Notre Dame 23 Post Game
« Reply #200 on: January 22, 2025, 07:08:32 AM »
greatest 4th place in conference multiple loss team ever ?
For sure.   Especially since they beat the snot out of the three teams in front of them.  
Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.
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Brutus Buckeye

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Re: #8 Ohio State 34, #7 Notre Dame 23 Post Game
« Reply #201 on: January 22, 2025, 07:36:36 AM »
The Wolverines couldn't beat OSU until the game no longer mattered. 

Crow all you want, all you did was galvanize the team to beat the other four teams that finished in the final Top 5 poll, while you heckled from the sidelines, outside of the CFP. 

Thanks for the NC. 

ELA

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Re: #8 Ohio State 34, #7 Notre Dame 23 Post Game
« Reply #202 on: January 22, 2025, 08:56:59 AM »

b) this is the first season of that 2nd loss not mattering at all
.
LSU and Les Miles would beg to differ

medinabuckeye1

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Re: #8 Ohio State 34, #7 Notre Dame 23 Post Game
« Reply #203 on: January 22, 2025, 09:49:40 AM »
Yo--ND fan here. Not surprised by the outcome. Based on the game mid-3rd quarter, I was surprised that ND managed to inject any excitement into the game at all--and I'm surprised they managed to make it as close as they did. I predicted an 11-point loss (although with slightly different numbers) in my family pool. So I guess I have that going for me.
Notre Dame certainly has nothing to feel bad about.  When it was 31-7 it could very easily have become a blowout on the scale of UGA/TCU but the Irish held it together, kept fighting, and ultimately were in a one-score game in the fourth quarter of the National Championship, that is a credit to them and their coach.  
She was muttering about "36 years..." 
A few comments on this:
First, it makes me feel REALLY old.  I well remember ND's NC in 1988 and how can that be 36 years ago.  

Second, do you think, within ND circles that the 1988 NC has a somewhat mythical status that maybe the others don't?  

Let me explain where that second question comes from:  Ohio State has somewhere between 7-9 NC's depending on who you ask but the seven that are pretty widely agreed on are:
  • 1942, Paul Brown won the school's first
  • 1954, Woody Hayes' first, 12 years later
  • 1957, Woody Hayes' second, 3 years later
  • 1968, Woody Hayes' third and last, 11 years later
  • 2002, Jim Tressel won for the first time in 34 years
  • 2014, Urban Meyer won 12 years later
  • 2024, Ryan Day won 10 years later
It always seemed to me that the 1968 team had a sorta mythical status that none of the others have.  I think the reason is simply that they were Ohio State's most recent NC for SOOOOOO long.  I was born in 1975 so the 1968 team was Ohio State's last NC from before I was born until after I had graduated.  In 2002 I was 26 and paid to fly to Vegas and drove down to watch the 2002 NC in person.  

My point is that fanbases are naturally going to reflect back on the most recent NC.  In Ohio State's case, that has only been for a dozen years or less for all of them except the 1968 team which was our most recent for so long that it just grew a sorta mythic status because we were still reflecting back on it even those of us who hadn't been born yet when it happened.  

medinabuckeye1

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Re: #8 Ohio State 34, #7 Notre Dame 23 Post Game
« Reply #204 on: January 22, 2025, 09:55:59 AM »
b) this is the first season of that 2nd loss not mattering at all
LSU and Les Miles would beg to differ
The distinction, to me anyway, is that back in 2007 when LSU lost a second game, they didn't know that it didn't matter.  They got EXTREMELY lucky for it not to matter.  In 2024 everyone knew before The Game that Ohio State was in the CFP either way.  

There is a difference, at least to me, between a game not mattering and everyone knows it before it is played and a game not mattering in retrospect because a whole slew of other dominos all fell a particular way.  

SFBadger96

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Re: #8 Ohio State 34, #7 Notre Dame 23 Post Game
« Reply #205 on: January 22, 2025, 01:42:44 PM »
Second, do you think, within ND circles that the 1988 NC has a somewhat mythical status that maybe the others don't? 

My point is that fanbases are naturally going to reflect back on the most recent NC.  In Ohio State's case, that has only been for a dozen years or less for all of them except the 1968 team which was our most recent for so long that it just grew a sorta mythic status because we were still reflecting back on it even those of us who hadn't been born yet when it happened. 

1) Yes: because it is currently the last one.
2) Yes, because everyone knows the older MNCs were pretty open to debate. Not all of them, but several. Until this year, the 1988 MNC that ND had was one of the best years a CFB team ever had as far as the competition that they beat to get there. Plus it had Catholics vs. Convicts. That season had everything (for that era). As ND MNCs go, I don't think there's any real debate about 1973 (unbeaten, took down #1 Alabama in the Sugar Bowl)*, but Alabama and maybe Arkansas whine about 1977 (all finished the year with one loss and a win in a bowl game), and there's all kinds of lore about the 1966 championship surrounding the MSU tie.
* Unbeaten Ohio State (one tie, with Michigan, also unbeaten, but couldn't go to a bowl game), which smoked USC (its other loss was to ND) in the Rose Bowl, and unbeaten (1 tie, vs. USC), but bowl-ineligible Oklahoma, and unbeaten (12-0) Penn State might dispute 1973, but they can all suck it. :-)

medinabuckeye1

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Re: #8 Ohio State 34, #7 Notre Dame 23 Post Game
« Reply #206 on: January 22, 2025, 02:47:22 PM »
1) Yes: because it is currently the last one.
2) Yes, because everyone knows the older MNCs were pretty open to debate. Not all of them, but several. Until this year, the 1988 MNC that ND had was one of the best years a CFB team ever had as far as the competition that they beat to get there. Plus it had Catholics vs. Convicts. That season had everything (for that era). As ND MNCs go, I don't think there's any real debate about 1973 (unbeaten, took down #1 Alabama in the Sugar Bowl)*, but Alabama and maybe Arkansas whine about 1977 (all finished the year with one loss and a win in a bowl game), and there's all kinds of lore about the 1966 championship surrounding the MSU tie.
* Unbeaten Ohio State (one tie, with Michigan, also unbeaten, but couldn't go to a bowl game), which smoked USC (its other loss was to ND) in the Rose Bowl, and unbeaten (1 tie, vs. USC), but bowl-ineligible Oklahoma, and unbeaten (12-0) Penn State might dispute 1973, but they can all suck it. :-)
The time difference, just like for Ohio State, is striking:
  • Notre Dame's 66 NC was only their last for seven years until 1973.  
  • ND's 73 NC was only their last for four years until 1977.  
  • ND's 77 NC was only their last for 11 years until 1988.  
  • 1988 has been their last for 36 years and counting.  
At this point ND's 1988 NC has been their last for longer than 1968 was for Ohio State.  I personally don't own any and never did, but as a kid I remember other kids at school having Ohio State 1968 NC gear (and I'm talking kids my age, born AFTER that NC).  It is the same for ND today.  When their fanbase looks back at NC's, the first one to contemplate is the one from 1988.  That, I think, is where the "mythology" comes from.  When an NC is the school's most recent it gets talked about, and built up and when that goes on and on and on as it did for 1968 for Ohio State and continues to for Notre Dame's 1988, I think that mythology just keeps growing and growing.  

I'm not letting the 1973 thing slide without a comment:
USC is the barometer of that season because the schedule they played was insane.  They "only" went 9-2-1 and finished #8 but:
  • Lost to final #1 ND 23-14 in South Bend
  • Lost to final #2 Ohio State 42-21 in SoCal
  • Tied final #3 Oklahoma 7-7 in SoCal

There has always been a great deal of luck involved in winning an NC.  A big part of it is simply when you have your off week.  Notre Dame's 1973 team, for example, barely defeated MSU at home, 14-10.  This was an MSU team that finished 5-6 with a 35-0 loss to tOSU and a 31-0 loss to M.  It was clearly a bad week for ND but they survived and nobody cares.  If they had their bad week against USC instead, they aren't NC.  

In the case of 1973 my argument has been and remains that Ohio State and Michigan were the best two teams in the nation (in that order).  They were both supremely unlucky that the other one was REALLY good that year as well so they tied and finished #2 (tOSU) and #6 (M).  

SFBadger96

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Re: #8 Ohio State 34, #7 Notre Dame 23 Post Game
« Reply #207 on: January 22, 2025, 03:29:59 PM »
I mostly agree with you, Medina, except on the 1973 point. The system was what it was. ND played the best bowl game and was unbeaten and untied. Beating a previously unbeaten Alabama that had pretty well smoked its whole schedule in the Sugar Bowl, more or less a home game for Alabama (same for USC in the Rose Bowl against Ohio State). So ND won the championship. That's how the system worked. Maybe Ohio State did have the best team (with Michigan as a close second). Certainly possible. But based on the standards of the day, going unbeaten and beating unbeaten Alabama in the Sugar Bowl, when no one else did (other than PSU, which played a weaker schedule/bowl) gets ND the title.

I was born a few days before these bowl games, so I don't have the faintest clue how all these teams looked with the eye-test. I think it's pretty interesting that the top three teams (ND, Ohio State, and Oklahomo) all had a common opponent in USC. What are the odds of that? Ohio State had the best win--on the road (basically), ND also won, convincingly, but at South Bend (and not as convincingly as OSU), and Oklahoma tied USC at USC in week 2. Ohio State and Michigan absolutely carved up their schedules, save for the tie against each other. ND had a near miss against a long-time rival. But they didn't miss.

Unbeaten team x beats unbeaten team y in major bowl game. Unbeaten team x wins the national title. That was the (flawed) system.

Now, Ohio State has the most impressive wins of any team ever, BUT it lost two games in the regular season, one of which doesn't look great (better than ND's loss, I'll happily grant you). So how much does ND's near miss with MSU really mean?

And this is why I kind of enjoyed adding that asterisk about 1973. It's a legit national title for ND, but it was also a system that didn't really give us a great barometer of who the best team was. :-)

All of which agrees with your point about the outsized importance of ND's 1988 title.

Also, how great would that 12-team playoff have been?
Without doing the full analysis, the AP top 12 at the end of the regular season: Bear Bryant's Alabama, Barry Switzer's Oklahoma, Ara Parseghian's ND, Woody Hayes's Ohio State, Bo Schembechler's Michigan, Joe Paterno's Penn State, John McKay's USC, Darrell Royal's Texas...I mean come on. Epic on top of epic and that's just the top 8. UCLA comes in at 9, Arizona State (as WAC champion) at 10, Texas Tech at 11 (only loss was to Texas), and oh look it's Tom Osborne's Nebraska at 12.

Someone asked about the golden age of college football? There's a case to be made...

medinabuckeye1

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Re: #8 Ohio State 34, #7 Notre Dame 23 Post Game
« Reply #208 on: January 22, 2025, 04:06:09 PM »
The system was what it was. ND played the best bowl game and was unbeaten and untied. Beating a previously unbeaten Alabama that had pretty well smoked its whole schedule in the Sugar Bowl, more or less a home game for Alabama (same for USC in the Rose Bowl against Ohio State). So ND won the championship. That's how the system worked. Maybe Ohio State did have the best team (with Michigan as a close second). Certainly possible. But based on the standards of the day, going unbeaten and beating unbeaten Alabama in the Sugar Bowl, when no one else did (other than PSU, which played a weaker schedule/bowl) gets ND the title.
Agreed.  I wasn't arguing that the AP should have voted differently, that was the system and that was how things worked.  11-0 was going to beat 10-0-1 on anything close to comparable schedules.  

My point was more about the luck issue.  Ohio State went into The Game that year at #1 ahead of #2 Bama, #3 Oklahoma, #4 Michigan, and #5 Notre Dame.  Without the mutual bad luck of both teams having a great year in the same year, the Ohio State/Michigan winner likely stays ahead of Notre Dame and ends up winning the NC once Alabama loses to Notre Dame.  
Also, how great would that 12-team playoff have been?
Without doing the full analysis, the AP top 12 at the end of the regular season: Bear Bryant's Alabama, Barry Switzer's Oklahoma, Ara Parseghian's ND, Woody Hayes's Ohio State, Bo Schembechler's Michigan, Joe Paterno's Penn State, John McKay's USC, Darrell Royal's Texas...I mean come on. Epic on top of epic and that's just the top 8. UCLA comes in at 9, Arizona State (as WAC champion) at 10, Texas Tech at 11 (only loss was to Texas), and oh look it's Tom Osborne's Nebraska at 12.

Someone asked about the golden age of college football? There's a case to be made...
This is a fascinating point.  On something like the current 12-team format, here is what I get:
  • #1 Bama, SEC Champs
  • #2 Oklahoma, Big8 Champs
  • #4 Ohio State, Big Ten Champs
  • #7 USC, Pac10 Champs
  • #3 Notre Dame
  • #5 Michigan
  • #6 Penn State
  • #8 Texas, SWC Champs
  • #9 UCLA
  • #10 ASU, WAC Champs
  • #11 TxTech
  • #12 Nebraska

So you'd have:
  • Tom Osborne's Nebraska Cornhuskers at Ara Parseghian's Fighting Irish, winner vs John McKay's Trojans
  • TxTech at Bo Schembechler's Wolverines, winner vs Woody Hayes' Buckeyes
  • ASU at Joe Paterno's Nittany Lions, winner vs Barry Switzer's Sooners
  • UCLA at Darrell Royal's Longhorns, winner vs Bear Bryant's Tide
That is basically a Mount Rushmore of College Football Coaches going up against each other.  

SFBadger96

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Re: #8 Ohio State 34, #7 Notre Dame 23 Post Game
« Reply #209 on: January 22, 2025, 05:18:55 PM »
Got to find a way to mix in Bobby Bowden, Nick Saban, Urban Meyer, and...?

 

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