Michael Penix Jr. and the receiving corps behind the country’s most high-power offense
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Kyle Bonagura, ESPN Staff Writer
SEATTLE — When coach Kalen DeBoer and offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb got to work at Washington in early December 2021, the facility was a bit of a ghost town. DeBoer planned to fill the bulk of his staff with several of his assistants from Fresno State, but five of them remained with the Bulldogs to see out their bowl game.
Only Grubb and cornerbacks coach/recruiting coordinator Julius Brown joined DeBoer immediately, leaving them to evaluate the roster to determine what to prioritize in recruiting and through the transfer portal. One thing that stood out to Grubb right away was how much talent there was at receiver. The production from Rome Odunze, Jalen McMillan and Ja’Lynn Polk wasn’t eye-popping in 2021, but Grubb saw their potential.
There was just one problem.
“Rome, J-Mac and J.P. all were in the transfer portal or talking about transferring basically in the first week I was here,” Grubb said. “It’s just me and Kalen. Nobody else is here yet [on the offensive staff]. So, my first 10 days, all I did was watch film with those three guys and try to convince them on the reasons to stay.”
The pitch boiled down to this: DeBoer and Grubb had been successful everywhere they had been. Several receivers had put up big numbers in their offense and they had a vision for how to use all three to maximize their potential in different ways. Grubb showed them film of the offense from previous stops and how each player would fit in. Here’s a concept from Eastern Michigan. This is what they did at Fresno State. And, of course, there was the season DeBoer spent as the OC at Indiana in 2019, when the Hoosiers — the Indiana Hoosiers — ranked third in the Big Ten in offense.
Grubb’s intent was to get the receivers excited about the offense and understand how they’d be used, but as he showed the cutups from Indiana, Odunze couldn’t help but notice a certain left-handed quarterback.
“I was like, ‘Oh my goodness,'” Odunze said. “He’s placing the ball wherever he wants to every play.”
At around the same time, quarterback Michael Penix Jr. finalized his own transfer decision. After four years at Indiana, each of which ended prematurely due to injury, it was time for a fresh start. For Washington, which was in the market for a veteran quarterback, the stars were aligning.
“I had a lot of people calling me, a lot of people [direct messaging] me and stuff like that about transferring,” Penix said. “But I never answered. Once I heard from DeBoer, I knew where I wanted to be.”
Penix’s move to Washington couldn’t have worked out much better. The receivers stayed and over the past two seasons, the Huskies have been among the most explosive offenses in college football. This year, Washington ranks No. 1 nationally in total offense (569.4 yards per game), No. 1 in passing yards (446.4 ypg) and No. 3 in scoring (46.0 points per game), turning Penix into ESPN.com’s leading Heisman Trophy candidate in the process.
Penix can take a major step toward the Heisman on Saturday, when the No. 7 Huskies (5-0, 2-0 Pac-12) host No. 8 Oregon (5-0, 2-0) in a matchup of the nation’s two top-ranked offenses.
PENIX SHOWED SIGNS early he had a bright future in football.
His father played running back at Tennessee Tech and his uncle played at South Florida, so when he was old enough — around 4 or 5 years old — his parents signed him up. It was one of many sports he played to stay busy, growing up in Tampa, Florida.
As a freshman in high school, he earned his first scholarship offer — from nearby Florida Atlantic — preceding a standout career at Tampa Bay Tech, where he was the county player of the year.
For most of that time, Penix thought he was headed to the SEC. He committed to Tennessee under then-coach Butch Jones prior to his junior year in the spring of 2017 and spent the next two seasons preparing to go to Rocky Top. Then came the coaching change. Jones was out; Jeremy Pruitt was in.
“It was crazy. The new coach comes in and you’re like, ‘OK, I’m about to sign in a couple weeks,’ and you don’t hear anything from the coaching staff,” Penix said. Eventually Penix learned, through his high school coach, that his offer had been pulled. Instead, Tennessee signed J.T. Shrout, who made eight appearances in four years at UT, played the 2022 season at Colorado and is now at Arkansas State.
Left without many options so late in the recruiting process, Penix ultimately decided between Indiana and Florida State, choosing the Hoosiers, in part, because former UT graduate assistant Nick Sheridan was the quarterbacks coach in Bloomington.
“It was certainly a rapid process,” said Sheridan, who is now the tight ends coach at Washington. “But it was nice because at least for me, I had known Mike and his family for a long time. I think he had braces when we first met. He was just a kid.”
A kid with star potential. Penix earned playing time as a true freshman, but his season ended in October, while playing in his third game, when he suffered a torn anterior crucial ligament in a close loss to Penn State.
“That was my first time ever getting injured in my life,” Penix said. “I never had a sprained ankle or anything, so when I got an ACL tear — to be honest, going into college, I had never heard of an ACL tear. I didn’t know what that was.”
The rehab went about as well as it could have and Penix returned in time to compete for the starting job with two-year starter Peyton Ramsey in front of DeBoer, who arrived from Fresno State months earlier as the new offensive coordinator. In what was considered a surprise at the time, Penix beat out Ramsey.
“It wasn’t what Peyton didn’t do,” then-Indiana coach Tom Allen said at the time. “It was more of what I believe Mike can be.”
And in six starts that year, Penix showed flashes of what he could be, helping the Hoosiers to a 5-1 record in those games before a shoulder injury again ended his season prematurely. At the time, Penix’s QBR (81.6) was comparable to Clemson‘s Trevor Lawrence (82.0), Oregon’s Justin Herbert (77.5) and Iowa State‘s Brock Purdy (73.9), all of whom have since developed into franchise quarterbacks in the NFL.
The next two years followed a similarly frustrating script: He began the season as the starter only to see the season end in injuries (another torn ACL in 2020; a shoulder injury in 2021). By the time the 2021 season was winding down, Penix had graduated and knew it was time to move on.
“[The injuries were] my first time really seeing true adversity and I just had to understand that not everything’s going to be perfect and I’m going to have to persevere through a lot of things throughout my career — and I was able to,” Penix said. “It allowed me to get to where I’m at today, but it just gave me a different perspective of the game and just not take any play for granted.”
PENIX WAS UP front with Washington about his plan. He knew he had the talent to get a shot in the NFL, he just needed to prove he could stay healthy enough to earn that opportunity.
“He told us, ‘Hey, it’s my intention that I’m going to play one year and do really good and hopefully get drafted and move on,”’ Grubb said. “Because for Mike prior to [the 2022 season] he was like, ‘If things go well. I don’t want to risk getting hurt again.'”
The staff understood his logic and was happy to welcome him under those circumstances.
But before that, he had to win the job and earn the trust of his teammates. There was widely-held assumption that he was the heavy favorite to win the job after arriving in December, but the dynamics of the quarterback competition were interesting considering the other two players were the two-year returning starter (Dylan Morris) and ESPN’s former No. 1-ranked high school pocket passer (Sam Huard).
For Morris, what stood out immediately was how quickly Penix, who was already familiar with the new system having played for DeBoer, processed the game.
“From Day 1, I saw he was really talented throwing the ball, but it was the field vision,” Morris said. “That’s the thing I’ve come to understand about him and I really try to learn from him — his field vision is just on another level.
“I’m going through reads and am like, ‘OK, I’m allowed to throw this or that,’ but he’s alerting something that’s really not necessarily part of the progression. He just sees it and it’s kind of funny you ask him, ‘How’d you see that?’ ‘He’s like, I don’t know, I just saw it.’ I’m like, ‘Man, that’s pretty elite.'”
Penix wasn’t officially named the starter until about a week and a half before the Huskies’ 2022 opener against Kent State, but by that time the writing was on the wall. Shortly after, he was voted a team captain in a nearly unanimous player vote.
“We all kind of rallied behind him,” Odunze said. “And I feel like that gave him more confidence as well. But he just stepped up his leadership to another level just understanding that, hey, he’s going to be the leader of this offense and this team.”
After Washington went 4-8 the year before, the Huskies were a revelation in 2022. They reached the 11-win mark for the fifth time in school history, went 3-0 against ranked teams and capped the season with a win against Texas in the Valero Alamo Bowl to finish ranked No. 8 in the AP poll.
Penix led the nation in passing, finished No. 8 in the Heisman voting and, perhaps most importantly, he stayed healthy for the entire season. Short of winning the Pac-12, the season followed the script he hoped it would. Then he rewrote the ending.
Instead of opting out of the bowl game and declaring for the NFL draft — a reasonable route considering recent trends and his own injury history — Penix announced he was returning for another season.
“I just felt like we had unfinished business and there were more things that I wanted to accomplish and the more things I felt like this team could accomplish,” Penix said. “I knew I had the opportunity to be a part of it again, and I knew that just with another opportunity, we can do something great.”
To some degree, Penix’s understanding that he could make some money through name, image and likeness rules factored into the decision, but that was only part of it.
“This is one thing I love telling people, I think it’s the epitome of Mike, which is very different from — and not a lot of people would say this or report it or even admit it — but Mike made his decision prior to having any NIL deals in place,” Grubb said. “I just think that’s such a critical point of who Mike is that he wanted to be here and had enough trust in what was going to happen here. The reality was we knew something would happen [with NIL], but there were no contracts in place or ‘this is what it’s going to be’ or anything like that.”
Last week, Penix and Odunze became the first college football players to sign NIL deals with Adidas and will participate in brand marketing campaigns, the company announced. Penix also has deals with Beats by Dre, trading card company Panini America and local apparel company Simply Seattle, along with other opportunities lined up by UW’s NIL collective, Montlake Futures.
Penix’s decision to return had a domino effect with the team’s other top players, with at least five others — Bralen Trice, Zion Tupuola-Fetui, Tuli Letuligasenoa, Odunze and McMillan — also making public announcements they would return to school.
“I was going over everything I could, calculating everything I could, talking with my family, with my dad, who is heavily involved in that as well,” Odunze said of his decision. “I was going over everything, but in the back of my mind was always, ‘I’ll be coming back with Penix.'”
GRUBB’S EARLY VISION for how to use Odunze, McMillan and Polk has largely played out as prophesized. They made a strong case for the best trio of receivers in college football last season with a combined 195 catches for 2,937 yards with 22 touchdowns, perhaps rivaled only by Ohio State‘s Marvin Harrison Jr., Emeka Egbuka and Julian Fleming (185/2,947/30).
“They reset the bar completely here at Washington in terms of what it looks like to play receiver here,” receivers coach JaMarcus Shephard said. “And they’re trying to hold each other, let alone the young guys in the room, accountable to not only upholding but uplifting that standard every single day at practice.”
This year, they’ve taken it to a new level.
“I knew the offense, a lot of the plays and different coverages and different schemes. So I understood where I wanted my guys and where we had to get to in different areas of the field to be able to make those plays,” Penix said. “But now being in Year 2 now, everybody understands it. Everybody understands why Coach Grubb is changing the play or why he’s calling a certain play and the look that we want. It just allows everybody to play much faster and more on the same page.”
In Odunze, the Huskies have a prototypical No. 1 option. He’s a threat to stretch the field, but equally adept in the screen game or on underneath routes. ESPN NFL draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr. ranks Odunze as the No. 2 receiver in college football.
“I say this to everyone. Rome is a 10-year pro,” Grubb said. “I just don’t mean he catches really well — he could probably run for president, too. Responsible, tough, smart, personable. He’s the guy.”
But one of the keys to Washington’s success is how well the receivers complement each other. McMillan controls the middle of the field from the slot. Polk might be the best route runner.
The group got deeper in the offseason with the arrival of one-time UW commit Germie Bernard, who spent his freshman season in 2022 at Michigan State. Bernard’s 17 catches rank just behind McMillan (20) for fourth on the team, but had a breakout performance against Arizona on Sept. 30, when he led the team with eight catches for 98 yards.
Penix is among the national leaders in every meaningful statistical category despite exiting early in four of the five games because the score was already out of hand. Washington would rank in the top half of the country in scoring just using its first half scoring average (30.2 ppg).
FEW GAMES IN college football history have ever featured two offenses as explosive as Saturday’s game between Oregon and Washington.
Countering with their own Heisman candidate in quarterback Bo Nix, the Ducks rank No. 2 nationally in total offense (556.8 ppg), No. 1 in scoring margin (39.8 ppg) and No. 2 in scoring (51.6 ppg).
The teams’ combined 97.6 ppg is the most between teams 5-0 or better since 2008, and the highest combined scoring average entering a Pac-12 game all-time, according to ESPN Stats & Information.
It also marks the final time the schools will play as members of the Pac-12, before moving to the Big Ten as a package deal next season.
Given what is set to be impacted — College Football Playoff positioning, two Heisman campaigns, the final Pac-12 title race — this might be the most anticipated Oregon-Washington game of all-time and a chance for Penix to further cement his legacy at Husky Stadium.
Sports
‘There was no other option’: The story of Ohio State’s title run from preseason hype to crushing defeat to playoff champion
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Andrea Adelson, ESPN Senior Writer
ATLANTA — Seven weeks and two days ago, Ohio State coach Ryan Day watched as Michigan planted its flag at midfield inside the Horseshoe, chaos ensuing: fans chanting “F— Ryan Day,” his players both fighting back and walking around dazed, the rival Wolverines celebrating.
Seven weeks and two days ago, what unfolded Monday night felt unimaginable: joy, celebration, triumph, Day right in the middle, the whole of Buckeye Nation now back in his corner.
After that devastating loss to Michigan, the first expanded 12-team College Football Playoff delivered a chance at salvation. And the Buckeyes took advantage from the start, outscoring their four postseason opponents by a combined score of 145-75, culminating with a 34-23 victory over Notre Dame for the program’s seventh national championship.
“No great accomplishments are ever achieved without going through adversity,” Day said. “That’s just the truth.” No team has benefited from the College Football Playoff quite like the Buckeyes.
In 2014, they were ranked No. 4 in the inaugural four-team field, beating No. 1 Alabama, then No. 2 Oregon behind third-string quarterback Cardale Jones to hoist the first championship trophy of the CFP era.
This year, they were the No. 8 seed in the first 12-team field. The loss to Michigan — Ohio State’s fourth straight in the series — kept them out of the Big Ten title game. And in any previous season, it would have kept them out of the playoff. But thanks to playoff expansion, the Buckeyes made it when the bracket was revealed Dec. 8.
The future still looked bleak.
Speculation swirled around Day and whether his disgruntled fan base could accept another failure in a season built for a national championship run.
A team meeting after the Michigan loss got heated. Feelings were hashed out, grievances aired.
“There’s multiple ways that you can respond to adversity in life, and that adversity brought us closer as an entire group,” receiver Emeka Egbuka said. “We were able to lift each other up in that moment, and we’ve gotten stronger because of it.”
Michigan would be their catalyst.
TWELVE MONTHS AND 12 days ago, cornerback Denzel Burke made sure to watch the 2024 national championship game all the way to the end so he could see rival Michigan hold up the trophy following a 34-13 win over Washington. He had the game on his phone while at dinner with teammate Lathan Ransom and was so hurt, he had to walk into the bathroom to cool off.
There is no fun in losing to your rival; even less fun is watching your rival win the national championship. Michigan beat Ohio State and won it all last season, thanks in part to a veteran group that put off the NFL to return to school to try and win a championship.
Day wanted the same for the Buckeyes in 2024. To get the better of Michigan, Ohio State would have to be like Michigan. Well, at least in one way. With $20 million to spend in NIL, Ohio State went about convincing its top players to return to school, too. Defensive end Jack Sawyer, who grew up in nearby Pickerington, Ohio, as a huge Buckeyes fan, led the charge.
Within short order, he and seven others — defensive end JT Tuimoloau, tailback TreVeyon Henderson, defensive tackle Tyleik Williams, defensive tackle Ty Hamilton, offensive lineman Donovan Jackson, Egbuka and Burke — put off the NFL to come back to school for one more year.
“It just kind of fueled our fire a little bit to come back and hoist the national championship trophy,” Burke said. “To be able to see them win it all like that, we wanted a piece of that.”
Player retention and development has been huge: The Buckeyes started 19 players who signed with the school and have combined for more than 520 starts. Many in the signing class of 2021, the foundation for this team, returned because they had contributed nothing to the trophy case inside the Woody Hayes Athletic Center and refused to let their careers end that way.
“This might be the biggest example of selflessness I have ever been a part of,” linebacker Cody Simon said. “So many guys had the opportunity to go first round, second round in the NFL draft. They all came back to play another year together.
“I commend all those guys who made a decision and all the guys who came in who were outside of our program because it takes a lot to get this all to work together.”
Day signed a top-tier recruiting class, including receiver Jeremiah Smith, and brought in key transfer portal acquisitions — quarterback Will Howard, safety Caleb Downs and running back Quinshon Judkins chief among them. Ohio State would enter 2024 as one of the most talented teams in the country. Expectations were clear from the start.
“At this time last year, which is crazy to think about, guys decided to come back and put their personal goals aside to achieve this goal,” Ransom said. “It’s pretty special. I hate when people say, ‘Win or bust,’ but we did everything to come back to win.”
Day knew he needed something to help his players best understand the journey on which they were about to embark. In their first preseason meeting last year, Day showed the team a picture of a lighthouse in the middle of a storm in the ocean. The lighthouse keeper, he told them, was counting on the lighthouse to be built with the right foundation to withstand the storm.
Then he told the story of three bricklayers building St. Paul’s Cathedral, and the importance of each brick being laid the right way. He told the players that every day after practice, he would hand out a scarlet and gray brick to one player. It would be his job to build a foundation for what was to come. The bricks could not be placed randomly or haphazardly. Building that foundation had to be done the right way.
Every day as players walked out to practice, they had a view of the bricks being stacked. Every day on the way back into the locker room, they had a view of the bricks being stacked. Over 100 bricks are now stacked perfectly, forming a foundational wall. “That wall is built for anything — the fire that we went through, the perseverance that we have, and here we are now,” Burke said.
“Storms are going to come,” Day said. “How is the foundation built? Was it built on a true foundation of rock or of sand? We knew those storms were coming. We didn’t know when, but that was ultimately going to allow us to withstand those storms.”
THE BIGGEST STORM came Nov. 30. The Buckeyes entered their rivalry game against Michigan as a 20.5-point favorite, ranked No. 2 in the CFP and with massive matchup advantages up and down the depth chart.
The Wolverines lost nearly every key offensive player from their 2023 national championship team and were 6-5 under first-year coach Sherrone Moore. Two of their best players were injured for the Ohio State game.
Finally, the Ryan Day Redemption Arc would be written.
Then the game kicked off. Michigan dominated up front, handcuffing Ohio State from doing much. Inexplicably, the Buckeyes could not get the ball to Smith to make enough of a difference, and Ohio State was shut out in the second half at home for the first time in 13 years.
When the final seconds ticked off the clock, Michigan had won 13-10 in one of the biggest upsets in the history of the rivalry. As the Wolverines planted their flag at midfield, Sawyer came charging up, tearing the Michigan flag down. He could be heard on video screaming, “They’re not f—ing planting the flag again on our field, bro!”
Day stood there silently, seemingly in disbelief. Though he ranks No. 1 among active head coaches in win percentage, Day has been judged by one thing: his record against Michigan. Day has gone 47-1 against all other Big Ten opponents in his career. But what did he do against the Wolverines? To date, he is 1-4. As a result, Ohio State has not won a Big Ten title since the truncated 2020 COVID-19 season, a year in which the rivals did not play.
Vitriol was directed at both Day and his players in the immediate aftermath of this season’s Michigan loss, and sports talk focused on whether Day needed to win the national championship to save his job. Athletic director Ross Bjork tried to quell the speculation when he gave a vote of confidence to Day in December, telling 97.1 The Fan in Columbus, “The season’s not over. The book is not closed.”
In that same interview, Bjork asked his Ohio State fans not to sell their tickets to Tennessee fans for their first-round playoff game in Columbus.
“We knew that we could play better than what we presented,” guard Donovan Jackson said. “So having people tell us we’re trash, terrible, garbage, half of us should transfer, half of us should leave the state of Ohio. No, we know how good we are.”
IN THE FOUR-TEAM CFP era, Ohio State made five playoff appearances and finished ranked No. 5 or 6 three other times. In fact, the Buckeyes ranked in the top seven in every final CFP poll, including No. 7 last year at 11-1. That lone loss to Michigan precluded them from making the four-team field.
The loss to Michigan this year served a far different purpose.
“The new format has allowed our team to grow and build throughout the season, and as much as losses hurt, they really allow us as coaches and players to take a hard look at the issues and get them addressed,” Day said.
The team meeting after the Michigan game got loud and emotional. Fingers were pointed, mistakes were rehashed, but players and Day took accountability. In times of great adversity, either you fold under the pressure or you rise to greatness. Ohio State chose not to break.
“There was no other option for us,” Simon said. “You go from feeling sorry for yourself to now we’ve got to rewrite the history for this season and this team.”
Kickoff against the Vols came on a chilly night at the Shoe, three weeks removed from the Michigan loss. Nobody knew how the Buckeyes would respond.
The nation got its answer two minutes and 14 seconds into the game. Then four minutes later. Then five minutes after that. By the time the first quarter ended, Ohio State had a 21-0 lead as it overwhelmed what had been one of the best defenses in the country, while completely stymying Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava and his high-powered offense.
Day said after the 42-17 win, “You could tell from the jump that they had a look in their eyes that they were going to win this game.”
Next up: a rematch with No. 1 Oregon in the CFP quarterfinals at the Rose Bowl. The undefeated Big Ten champion Ducks handed the Buckeyes their first defeat back in October, after Howard lost track of the game clock while trying to drive for a game-winning score, running with four seconds left and sliding as time ran out in the 32-31 loss.
There would be no need for late-game heroics this time around. Once again, Ohio State bulldozed its way to a massive lead, going up 34-0 before winning 41-21. After two rounds, the Buckeyes had harnessed all their talent and potential and were playing like the “championship or bust team” many envisioned when the season began.
There was more to come. Before the semifinal against Texas at the Cotton Bowl, Day had a simple message for his team: “To leave a legacy, become your own legend.”
With the game on the line in the fourth quarter, leave it to the player who dreamed about winning an Ohio State national title as a little boy throwing a football in his backyard with his dad, to do just that.
Sawyer strip-sacked Quinn Ewers on fourth-and-goal from the 8 with 2:13 left, then returned the fumble 83 yards to put the game out of reach and give the Buckeyes a 28-14 win.
The image of Day standing silently next to a riled-up Sawyer after the Michigan game was replaced with the image of Day unclipping his headset and jumping into a giant bear hug from Sawyer on the sideline screaming, “YEAHHHHHHHHHHHH!” A hug so powerful, it appeared to break a camera the CFP had placed on Sawyer after the play.
“The resiliency of this team, from a month ago, it’s been incredible,” Sawyer said afterward. “I love Columbus. I love the state of Ohio. I love Ohio State football. I’m so fortunate to be playing in the national championship my last year here.”
Just like the semifinal, the national championship game needed a fourth-quarter play to seal the win. This time, it was Smith and his 57-yard reception with 2:29 left that ended any Notre Dame comeback hopes.
Ohio State trailed for the first time in this CFP after the Fighting Irish opened the game with a clock-busting drive that nearly lasted 10 minutes and ended with a Riley Leonard touchdown run.
Then the Buckeyes showed off their wealth of depth and talent during a critical portion of the game — the rest of the first half and start of the second — pulling ahead and proving right those who chose them in the preseason to bring home another national championship. Their offensive line opened up huge holes for Henderson and Judkins while allowing virtually no one to come near Howard. The Notre Dame defense was flummoxed — alternating between man and zone — unable to answer for Judkins nor for a mobile Howard, who was all too eager to take off when the running lanes opened. Ohio State converted all six of its third-down attempts in the first half, and Howard opened the game with 13 straight completions — a record for most completions to start a national championship game.
The Buckeyes raced out to a 28-7 lead after their first series of the third quarter and then held on against an inspired Notre Dame effort. Afterward, a raucous Ohio State crowd chanted Ryan Day’s name as he walked off the field.
They may not be able to call themselves Big Ten champions. They may not have a win over That Team Up North.
But the Buckeyes have something to celebrate that is theirs, and only theirs: the national championship.
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David Purdum, ESPN Staff Writer
The top two favorites to win next season’s College Football Playoff will square off in Week 1, when Ohio State hosts Texas on Aug. 30.
The Longhorns and the defending-champion Buckeyes enter the offseason as the favorites to win the 2025-26 College Football Playoff at sportsbooks. Texas, which is poised to begin the Arch Manning era, opened as the national title favorite at +450 at ESPN BET, followed by the Buckeyes (+500) and Georgia (+600). Ohio State is the favorite at other sportsbooks, but those three teams top the early odds across the betting market.
Oregon and Penn State, each at +750, round out the teams with odds shorter than 10-1 in ESPN BET’s opening numbers.
Ohio State held off Notre Dame in Monday’s College Football Playoff National Championship game, capping a dominant postseason run. The Fighting Irish opened at +1500 to win next season’s title at ESPN BET.
Manning is expected to be the Longhorns’ starting quarterback with Quinn Ewers declaring for the NFL draft. FanDuel has Manning as the second favorite to win next season’s Heisman Trophy, behind LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier.
The transfer portal has added to the challenges sportsbooks face when creating odds to win the following season’s national championship.
“We will take our power ratings for 2025 and make the proper adjustments to account for recruiting, returning production and transfer portal changes,” said Joey Feazel, a trader at Caesars Sportsbook. “It is a challenging process at times, but year after year, we are getting better at it.”
The preseason betting favorite to capture the national championship has not won it since Alabama in 2017.
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Mark Schlabach, ESPN Senior Writer
ATLANTA — Maybe Ohio State football fans will like coach Ryan Day now.
Fifty-one days after suffering the worst loss of his career, Day guided the No. 8 Buckeyes to their first national championship in 10 years with a 34-23 victory over No. 7 Notre Dame in the CFP National Championship presented by AT&T on Monday night.
The Buckeyes led the Irish 31-7 midway through the third quarter, but the Irish kept fighting and pulled to within one score and a two-point conversion with just more than four minutes remaining.
Notre Dame quarterback Riley Leonard threw a 34-yard touchdown pass to Jaden Greathouse with 3:03 left in the third and tossed a two-point play to tailback Jeremiyah Love to make it 31-15. Then, after a late defensive stop, Leonard found Greathouse again for a 30-yard touchdown and Beaux Collins converted the two-point attempt to pull the Irish within 31-23 with 4:15 left.
The Buckeyes finally put the Irish away for good when quarterback Will Howard threw a deep ball to freshman Jeremiah Smith, who beat cornerback Christian Gray for a 56-yard gain to the Irish 10. That led to Jayden Fielding‘s 33-yard field goal that put the Buckeyes up 11 with 26 seconds left.
The victory was redemption for Day, whose team fell to rival Michigan, the so-called “School Up North,” for the fourth straight time in a stunning 13-10 defeat at home on Nov. 30. That loss, in which the Buckeyes were 21-point favorites, knocked them out of the Big Ten championship game.
But the defeat didn’t eliminate Ohio State from the first 12-team CFP, and the Buckeyes took down No. 9 Tennessee in the first round, No. 1 Oregon in the quarterfinals and No. 5 Texas in the semifinals before beating the Fighting Irish in their 16th game of the season.
“I say all the time to our players, the first time you got on a bike you didn’t just ride the bike, you fell down, and how quickly did you learn from falling down to get back on the bike to learn to ride a bike?” Day said. “Well, it’s like that in life. You learn from going through difficult times like that.”
That was what made Monday night so special for Day and everyone around him.
“I think he’s done a great job, and I think he understands the weight of what this job is,” Ohio State offensive coordinator Chip Kelly said this week. “That comes with the territory. He’s shown who he is, and I think he’s done an unbelievable job in that situation.”
Ohio State’s players said Day accepted some of the blame for coming up short against Michigan again. But the shocking defeat might have been exactly what the Buckeyes needed in order to capture the seventh national title in program history.
“We had to address all the issues we had on the team,” Buckeyes defensive tackle Tyleik Williams said. “Everybody spoke up and just fixed those problems that we had. The leadership on this team is like I’ve never seen. That wouldn’t have happened a couple years ago.”
With a 70-10 record, Day now has the second-best winning percentage (87.5%) among coaches with at least 80 FBS games. Only Walter Camp, who coached at Stanford and Yale in the late 1800s, had a better winning percentage (90.7%).
And with Michigan having claimed the last four-team CFP following the 2023 season, the Big Ten captured consecutive national titles for the first time since 1940-42, when Minnesota won back-to-back titles and Ohio State added a third.
Monday’s game also was redemption for Howard, the Kansas State transfer who struggled in his first start against Michigan. Against Notre Dame, Howard completed 17 of 21 passes for 231 yards with two touchdown passes, while running 16 times for 57 yards.
Quinshon Judkins, an Ole Miss transfer, ran 11 times for 100 yards with three total touchdowns. Smith caught five passes for 88 yards with one score.
Leonard led the Irish with 255 yards on 22-for-31 passing with two touchdowns. Greathouse caught six passes for 128 yards with two scores.
This one was especially satisfying for the Big Ten because it came in the SEC’s backyard. The SEC was left out of the CFP title game for the second straight season, which hadn’t happened since 2004-05.
Notre Dame, which was trying to capture its first national championship since 1988, had its 13-game winning streak snapped. It was Ohio State’s seventh straight victory against the Irish.
After falling behind 7-0 on the game’s opening drive, Ohio State quickly answered with a touchdown of its own and never took its foot off the gas. On the Buckeyes’ first possession, TreVeyon Henderson ran for 19 yards to move the ball to the Notre Dame 40. Then Judkins ran for 15 after catching a screen pass from Howard.
On second-and-5 at the 8, Smith went into motion toward Howard. But then Smith stopped and ran back to the right. When Notre Dame’s secondary blew the coverage, Smith caught a pass in the flat and easily ran into the end zone to tie the score at 7-all with 14:10 left in the first half.
It was the first opening-drive touchdown the Notre Dame defense had allowed since a 49-7 win against Stanford at home on Oct. 12.
After two penalties backed the Irish up and forced them to punt on their next possession, Ohio State needed just two plays to move across the 50. Howard scrambled for 11 yards on third-and-5 at the Notre Dame 43. He ran for three more on third-and-2 at the 12. On the next play, Judkins stiff-armed linebacker Jaiden Ausberry to the ground and scored on a 9-yard run to make it 14-7 with 6:15 remaining.
Things unraveled for the Irish on their next possession. On third-and-5 at their 30, tight end Mitchell Evans went into motion. Center Pat Coogan‘s snap to Leonard hit Evans, who recovered the fumble at the Irish 26, forcing another punt.
The Buckeyes took over at their 20 with just under five minutes to play in the half. Howard delivered big on two third-and-7 plays. At the OSU 23, he threw a 19-yard pass to Brandon Inniss. At the OSU 45, he completed a 20-yarder to the sliding Carnell Tate.
On second-and-4 at the Notre Dame 6, Howard found Judkins, who was all alone in the end zone for another touchdown to make it 21-7 with 27 seconds to go in the half.
The Buckeyes had possession to start the second half, and they didn’t need long to score again. On the second play, Judkins burst through the line and ran past linebacker Jack Kiser. Cornerback Leonard Moore finally pulled down Judkins after a 70-yard gain to the Irish 5. Judkins scored his third touchdown of the game on a 1-yard run three plays later to give Ohio State a 28-7 lead.
The Irish failed to pull off a fake punt at their 33 on their next possession, leading to Fielding’s 46-yard field goal that made it 31-7.
Notre Dame’s first possession of the game couldn’t have been scripted any better. The Irish picked up six first downs over the first 9 minutes, 45 seconds, with Leonard running for four and throwing for two more.
When the Buckeyes stopped Leonard on third-and-1 at the Ohio State 45 with about 11 minutes to go in the quarter, coach Marcus Freeman left his offense on the field. Leonard ran three yards and a first down. On third-and-3 from the OSU 7, Ohio State pulled Leonard down for a 2-yard gain. The Irish went again on fourth-and-1, and Leonard lowered his shoulder and ran for 4 yards.
Leonard ran into the end untouched on the next play, giving the Fighting Irish a 7-0 lead with 5:15 to go in the first.
Unfortunately, that was about as good as it would get for Notre Dame’s offense in the first half. The Irish went three-and-out on their next two drives and gained just 18 yards the rest of the half.
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