Ohio State Left No Doubt On Its Way to Winning the College Football Playoff National Championship

“Leave no doubt.”

That was Ohio State's motto for the 2024 season and three words that Ryan Day reiterated time after time since making that a point of emphasis back in August, taking a line from the movie Remember the Titans.

“Leave no doubt,” Day said during fall camp. “Look back at where we’ve been the past several years when games that came down to the final play could have been put away earlier. Coming up a drive short, a play short – you can’t leave it to one drive. You can’t leave it to one play. You just can’t. You have to leave no doubt. That’s it.

“Whether it’s a prize fighter going down to knock them out or leave it to the judges, you can’t do that. That’s been something we’ve talked a lot about. Mick (Marotti) has hammered it in the offseason. We still break down some of our meetings that way. We have to do that. That’s probably the one we’ve grabbed onto the most this year.”

While describing Will Howard's 56-yard pass to Jeremiah Smith late in the game, Day used that phrase again to describe the completion that essentially clinched the title for the Buckeyes.

"The throw and catch to Jeremiah at the end, I felt like we were leaving no doubt with this thing," Day said on Tuesday morning.

WILL HOWARD DELIVERS

HOWARD TO JEREMIAH SMITH FOR 56 YARDS ON THIRD DOWN AND OHIO STATE CAN TASTE THE CHAMPIONSHIP!!

Watch the #CFB Championship LIVE on ESPN! pic.twitter.com/LliM7jc7hY — ESPN Australia & NZ (@ESPNAusNZ) January 21, 2025

On their way to a record five AP top-five wins, the Buckeyes played their best against some of the best teams in college football throughout the season, showing that attitude and mindset time and time again.

Day went from being questioned whether he could win big games to beating five top-five opponents by an average score of 32.2-17.2, an average of a 15-point winning margin in those five games. Ohio State beat teams who are ranked No. 2, No. 3, No. 4, No. 5, No. 9, and No. 10 in the final AP Poll en route to a national championship.

While OSU was criticized for its weak non-conference schedule, seven of its last 11 games of the season came against teams that went on to make the CFP. The Buckeyes' only loss in those games came in a one-point loss to Oregon in Eugene before Ohio State got its revenge with a dominant win over the Ducks in the Rose Bowl.

The Buckeyes not only dominated the AP top-five, but OSU certainly left no doubt on its remarkable CFP run, winning all four games – Tennessee (42-17), Oregon (41-21), Texas (28-14) and Notre Dame (34-23) – by multiple scores. The average score in Ohio State's four CFP wins was 36.3-18.8, a margin of 17.5 points, as OSU nearly doubled its number of points scored (145) compared to the number of points it allowed (75) during the playoff.

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