College Football National Championship Preview: Ohio State vs. Notre Dame.
The two best defenses will play for the National Championship next Monday. Here's everything you need to know about this historic matchup.
The two best defenses will play for the National Championship next Monday. For the better part of the year, though, Texas has held the top spot as the number-one defense in college football. Then the post-season started.
First, there was the second match with Georgia. The secondary could hold down the fort, but the run defense gave up 94 yards to Trevor Etienne and 141 total on the ground. Even with the Longhorns holding the Bulldogs to 136 yards passing and two turnovers, it wasn’t enough to win the SEC.
Against Clemson, the run defense showed back up, limiting the Tigers to 74 yards rushing. The secondary looked shaky at times versus Cade Klubnik and Co., with Texas surrendering 336 yards passing, three touchdowns, and only one interception. The performance was enough to win-handedly, and the defense did make the Tigers one-dimensional, but a tougher task was ahead against Arizona State.
The Sun Devils had one of the more explosive offenses in college football. However, Texas’ SEC schedule shielded it from playing Ole Miss, the only top-ten offense in OFEI (think NFL’s DVOA) in the SEC. The three next best, Georgia (#13), LSU (#17), and Alabama (#21), were all left off the Longhorns’ schedule.
Of that group, the Bulldogs had the highest EPA/play (seventh) and the fourth-best run EPA/play (fourth). Arizona State would be a unique challenge. Running back Cam Skattebo would start the game slow, but by the end had accumulated just under 150 yards rushing. Again, the Longhorns were playing on a see-saw; one week, the secondary played well, and the next was the run defense.
College football will witness the two best defenses take the field on Monday night. Both secondaries can argue they are the best in the land. Ohio State gets the nod on offense, while the Irish get the nod on defense. Each team has an imperfect schedule and has had major flaws exposed at points during the year. However, the primary catalyst for both teams has been staunch defenses.
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How They Got Here
Both Notre Dame and Ohio State have played consistently great defense. Each team also features blips in their schedule. For the Irish, it was a strange loss to Northern Illinois, a team that went 4-4 in the MAC and 8-5 on the year. The Huskies could rack up almost 200 yards on the ground and limit Notre Dame’s offense to under 300 total yards.
The Buckeyes have only given up more than 20 points once all year, in their first loss, a 32-31 shootout with Oregon, the #1 offense in OFEI for most of the year. In their annual finale in ‘The Big Game,’ Ohio State held the Wolverines to 13 points, 62 yards through the air, and two interceptions but gave up 172 on the ground. The vaunted offense of the Buckeyes could only muster 10 points and lost their second game of the season, which was probably the most important to the program.
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