The Ohio State Buckeyes are national champions again, and they did it by charting a course no previous college football team ever negotiated.

No other team was ever presented with the challenges Ohio State accepted, met and overcame.

The Buckeyes and their coach, Ryan Day, were both given up for dead after a stunning 13-10 loss to rival Michigan on Nov. 30 in Columbus.

The Buckeyes were favored by three touchdowns or more. Despite losing three straight to the Wolverines, the game was supposed to be a mere speed bump for Ohio State on its way to the first 12-team College Football Playoff.

But the Buckeyes’ national championship dreams appeared bleak and Day’s job security was shaky at best, with many football-mad Ohio State fans calling for his firing.

Columbus is a difficult place to coach. Just ask Jim Tressel and Urban Meyer — and they had no trouble beating up the Wolverines and taking their lunch money.

Day was 1-4 against Ohio State’s biggest rival, with four consecutive losses in the best rivalry in sports. Many considered him John Cooper 2.0, whose teams were mostly successful, except for a 2-10-1 record in The Game.

Surely, the 2024 loss would be the tipping point for Day in Columbus. It had to be, right?

But then something strange and beautiful happened. Day met with his players in the wake of that gut punch of a defeat — just him and them. Day told them he was to blame for the loss — just as he did when he addressed the media — and promised the Buckeyes this was not the end.

The coach, who reportedly had to hire security at his suburban Columbus home because of threats from angry fans after that loss, told his players that they would have four more games together.

And he was right.

The Buckeyes — embarrassed but still determined — rallied around one another in the Woody Hayes Athletic Center, went to work and began to make history.

Ohio State made short work of Tennessee, 42-17, at Ohio Stadium and Oregon, 41-21, in the Rose Bowl and then fended off the best efforts of Texas, 28-14, in what was essentially a home game for the Longhorns in the Cotton Bowl Classic at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.

That game was sealed when Jack Sawyer stripped the ball from his former Ohio State roommate Quinn Ewers as Texas was driving for what might have been a tying touchdown. Sawyer picked up the fumble and raced 83 yards for a game-clinching TD to put the Buckeyes in the National Championship Game against Notre Dame.

It was one of the biggest and timeliest places in the storied history of Ohio State football. But there was more to come.

The Buckeyes raced to a 31-7 third-quarter lead against the Fighting Irish on Monday night at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, but Notre Dame — as its nickname suggests — fought back to pull within 31-23 late in the fourth quarter.

That’s when quarterback Will Howard and star wide receiver Jeremiah Smith combined to deliver the play that was the final dagger and — like Sawyer’s clincher against Texas — instantly became legendary. The Irish sent seven defenders to pressure Howard and that left Smith covered by one poor soul. The freshman raced free downfield and hauled in a 56-yard pass to set up a clinching field goal.

History was made. The Buckeyes are the first team to defeat five Associated Press top-5 opponents in a season, including the last three in a row. Earlier this season, Ohio State beat Penn State and Indiana when they were ranked in the top five.

The Buckeyes’ story of redemption is the stuff of legend, but don’t overlook Day’s role in all of this. This is a man whose career winning percentage is .875, third all-time among coaches with at least 50 games.

But despite Day’s 70-10 career record, some fans wanted him fired just a few weeks ago.

Day and Ohio State overcame all that turmoil in what became a season for the ages. But he overcame even more.

Ryan Day lost his father to suicide on Jan. 20, 1988, when he was just 9 years old. And on Jan. 20, 2025, Day coached the Buckeyes to a national championship.