College Football Playoff: The 5 key plays from Ohio State's national championship win over Notre Dame

Ohio State won its first national title in a decade with a 34-23 win over Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff national championship game on Monday night.

The Buckeyes jumped all over Notre Dame after the Irish opened the game with a TD. But the Buckeyes still had to make a couple key plays down the stretch to clinch the game. Here are the five plays that defined Ohio State's win.

Riley Leonard’s TD run

Notre Dame had to work really, really, really hard to get its first TD of the game.

The Irish got the ball to start the game and turned the opening drive into a touchdown. But it took a lot of plays for that to happen. Riley Leonard’s one-yard TD run was the 18th of the drive as the Irish faced four third downs and converted two fourth downs on the drive.

Leonard carried the ball nine times on the drive as he continued to be the player that Notre Dame turned to when it needed key yards on the ground. The drive took nearly 10 minutes off the clock as Ohio State took over with just 5:15 remaining in the first quarter. It was also a possession that ultimately encapsulated Notre Dame's effort as the Irish clawed back into the game in the second half.

Quinshon Judkins’ second TD

The Buckeyes had to wait a while to get the ball and couldn’t stop scoring in the first half when they were on offense. Ohio State scored touchdowns on all three of its first-half drives and all three of those drives had at least 10 plays.

Jeremiah Smith capped off the first drive with a nifty route out of the backfield for an eight-yard TD catch and Quinshon Judkins scored on a nine-yard run on the second drive. Judkins then found the end zone again with 27 seconds to go on a six-yard catch from Will Howard.

That TD capped off a 12-play, 80-yard drive and gave the Buckeyes a 21-7 lead before halftime. It was reminiscent of the Cotton Bowl semifinal, when TreVeyon Henderson’s 75-yard TD with 13 seconds left in the second quarter broke a tie game and gave Ohio State a 14-7 lead before the break.

Notre Dame’s failed fake punt

Not only did Ohio State carry a two-score lead into halftime, the Buckeyes got the ball to start the second half. And Judkins scored his third TD of the night on a one-yard run three plays after he broke a 70-yard run.

Trailing 28-7, Notre Dame needed an answer. And it almost got one despite going three-and-out on its first drive of the second half.

The Irish snuck backup QB Steve Angeli out on the field with the punt team. He lined up as an up man in the backfield before taking the snap. Ohio State was prepared for the fake, but Jordan Faison had a step on his defender as he ran an out route to the sideline.

Angeli delivered a catchable pass to Faison, but the ball went through his hands and fell to the turf in front of the Ohio State sideline.

The Buckeyes went on to kick a field goal on their next drive to extend the lead to 24 points. At the time, that field goal looked like a game-clincher. It instead turned out to be incredibly important in the context of how the rest of the game played out.

Notre Dame’s missed field goal

Jaden Greathouse caught a 34-yard TD from Leonard with 3:03 to go and a two-point conversion catch by Jeremiyah Love cut Ohio State’s lead to 16 points.

The Irish then got a big break on the first play of the fourth quarter when Emeka Egbuka fumbled at the Notre Dame 21 yard-line. Had Ohio State scored on the drive, the game would certainly have been out of reach for a Notre Dame offense that was moribund between its two touchdowns.

Instead, the Irish had a chance to cut the lead to one score. And they got into the red zone after Leonard found Greathouse for 11 yards on a fourth down.

But the drive stalled out at the OSU 9 yard-line after Leonard threw two incomplete passes and it looked like Notre Dame would need to go for the TD on fourth down with less than 10 minutes to go.

Instead, coach Marcus Freeman decided to send the field goal team out. It was a head-scratching decision. After all, 16 points is two TDs and two two-point conversions. A field goal would still mean Notre Dame would need two touchdowns and one extra point — or two field goals and a touchdown and an extra point — to get the game tied.

But Freeman was apparently enamored with the idea of getting points after the turnover. Yet Notre Dame didn’t get any after Mitch Jeter’s 27-yard field goal bounced off the left upright with 9:27 to go.

Will Howard’s completion to Jeremiah Smith

Notre Dame’s decision to kick the field goal looked even worse in hindsight after the Irish got a quick stop against the Ohio State offense. Of course, it was far from a guarantee that Notre Dame would have scored a TD had it gone for the score on fourth down, but the Irish still found themselves down two scores when getting the ball back with 6:20 to go.

The lead went down to eight just over two minutes later, when Leonard connected with Greathouse for a 30-yard TD. But Notre Dame still needed to get a stop to have a chance. And that didn’t happen.

Howard ran for a first down on the second play of Ohio State’s final drive and was subsequently stopped on two keepers with less than three minutes to go. After Notre Dame called its second timeout ahead of third down, the Irish played man coverage and sent pressure at Howard.

That backfired. Smith — already one of the best wide receivers in college football as a freshman — was in one-on-one coverage with Christian Gray. Smith immediately got separation on a go route down the field and Howard found him to essentially seal the win.

The completion to Smith easily put Ohio State in field goal range and Jayden Fielding's kick with less than 30 seconds to go pushed the Buckeyes' lead back to two scores and the game officially out of reach for Notre Dame.