Can Notre Dame stop Ohio State’s explosive offense in title game?
USA TODAY Sports’ Dan Wolken and Michelle Martinelli discuss who will prevail, Notre Dame and their stout defense or Ohio State and their explosive offense.
Sports Pulse
ATLANTA — They met Sunday morning as a winter storm rolled through this city, an omen to the brewing controversy within the College Football Playoff.
This isn’t about the CFP Board of Managers and Management committee meeting to analyze format, or the selection committee or campus games.
This is about officiating.
Ohio State coach Ryan Day has been wearing out Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti about officiating since late September, according to a person close to the process who asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
Day is sending game tape, and using specific metrics. He’s calling the league office and personally bending the ear of both Petitti and Bill Carollo, the Big Ten’s widely respected coordinator of officials since 2008.
Only now, there’s a new twist: SEC officials will be used to officiate Monday’s national championship game against Notre Dame. And Day isn’t happy.
“The playoff committee is going to learn some different things about what needs to be done in a lot of areas,” Day said Saturday during media day. “I know that commissioner Petitti is certainly looking at those things.”
At front of mind now are SEC officials – and the entire SEC collaborative replay process – working the championship game.
The SEC and Big Ten are fierce rivals on and off the field, and an Ohio State win would give the Big Ten its second straight national title — and leave the SEC out of the championship picture (and the championship game) for the second consecutive season.
I don’t want to open a can of conspiracy to feed the fanatical on the eve of the biggest game of the college football season, but it’s hard to argue with Day when it’s laid out for all to see.
Ohio State, with the No. 1 scoring defense in the nation, hasn’t had an opponent with an enforced offensive holding penalty since a Sept. 21 win over Marshall. That run spans nine regular season games and three CFP games.
And — are you ready for this? — 728 plays from scrimmage.
“It’s crazy,” said injured Ohio State center Seth McLaughlin. “Can you imagine not one holding call all that time? How does that even happen?”
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While Day has been working the Big Ten office for weeks, his complaints have increased in the postseason, according to the person close to the process.
Ohio State is No.3 in the nation with 51 sacks, and No. 3 in rush defense. It’s nearly impossible to not have earned a holding call from an opponent — especially since many coaches and players insist there’s holding on nearly every snap of every game.
It’s not just the 728 consecutive plays since the last holding call, it’s the 207 plays in three CFP games — where officiating is supposed to be the elite of the elite. Football Bowl Subdivision conferences working the CFP games send their highest-rated crews to work the games.
Is it ridiculous for Day to think SEC officials, working for a conference in direct completion with the Big Ten, would work against the Buckeyes? Of course it is.
But it’s just as ridiculous to think Ohio State could go 728 plays without drawing a holding call. That Michigan could run the ball 42 times – against eight- and nine-man fronts from the best defense in college football – and not hold once.
Or that Oregon, trailing from the jump in the Rose Bowl quarterfinal, didn’t hold once in 42 pass attempts. The Ducks gave up eight sacks, but didn’t hold once.
That, everyone, is the definition of conspiracy.
Day isn’t alone in his concern for officiating in the multi-billion dollar College Football Playoff. It’s a brutal job, one that’s only highlighted when there are mistakes.
The problem is, there have been multiple high-profile mistakes, and in one instance, a targeting non-call that could’ve prevented Arizona State from winning the quarterfinal Peach Bowl against Texas.
The non-call against Texas safety Michael Taaffe, who appeared to have hit Arizona State wide receiver Melquan Stovall helmet-to-helmet late in regulation of the Longhorns’ double-overtime victory, forced a punt with 1:10 to play. With a targeting call – which former officials from the NFL and college football publicly said was indeed targeting – the Sun Devils would’ve had the ball at the Texas 47.
Texas still could’ve stopped Arizona State and moved the game into overtime. But the Sun Devils, with clear momentum, also could’ve scored in any number of ways — not just a field goal.
All of this isn’t necessarily new, with questionable calls from officials littered all over the landscape of just about every sport. But the specifics of the impact is unique to college football, which has a tiered system of financial gain.
The Big Ten and SEC are the money-making behemoths of the sport, leaving all other FBS conferences in their financial wake. It’s not that officials deliberately make calls to benefit one team or the other, it’s the idea they do.
The fact that a Big Ten crew worked the Peach Bowl quarterfinal didn’t help the optics of it all.
This brings us back to the national championship game against Notre Dame, where heavily favored Ohio State is one step from winning its first national title since 2014.
The last time these teams played in 2023, a 17-14 Ohio State at Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish were assessed four penalties for 50 yards. All were defensive penalties.
The CFP management committee finished meeting here early Sunday afternoon, a spokesperson saying no votes had been taken and no changes made. Yet.
“After the season,” Day said Saturday, “There’s going to be a lot of things that we need to look at to make things better across the board.”
Controversy or not.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.