A well-titled title match

 So, then: Notre Dame vs. Ohio State, for all the cookies.

Couple of heavyweight "brands", as we like to call them these days.  Couple of programs with history hanging off them like Spanish moss. The Book of Kells vs. the Bayeux Tapestry, if you will, for the historically inclined.

Also, two, shall we say, devoted fan bases. They must be turning handsprings up there in Bristol, Conn., where ESPN's massive and apparently inescapable reach originates.

Why, they must think they've died and gone to the Big Sportscenter Set In The Sky, getting these two for the endgame. Knute Rockne! Woody Hayes! Rudy and the Four Horsemen and Hopalong Cassidy and Archie Griffin, oh, my!

It happened because a guy with a name straight out of Mark Twain -- Jack Sawyer -- shook the football out of Texas quarterback Quinn Ewer's grasp last night, scooped it up and returned it 83 yards the other way to seal a 28-14 Cotton Bowl win for the Buckeyes. Until then, overtime was lurking, because the minutes were getting small and Ewer had the Longhorns on Ohio State's doorstep looking to tie it at 21. 

But, nah. Sawyer forced the fumble, took it home and put the Buckeyes in the title game.

And we get Knute and Woody and all that business. We even get William Shakespeare.

No, not because he once wrote "A fullback! A fullback! My kingdom for a fullback!" Because William Shakespeare -- OK, so he went by "Bill" -- was the actual name of an actual Notre Dame quarterback once, and he was the hero of the day the last time Notre Dame and Ohio State played on an occasion this big.

The year was 1935, Ohio State was undefeated and ranked No. 1, and Notre Dame was also undefeated but regarded as slightly less so. They met in Ohio Stadium on November 2  in front of 81,000 fans, and Ohio State jumped out to a 13-0 lead. But the Irish rallied, and with 32 seconds to play good old Bill Shakespeare threw the touchdown pass heard 'round the world (or at least in South Bend) to Wayne Millner, lifting Notre Dame to the 18-13 upset.

Forsooth, and all that.

Anyway, they called it the Game of the Century, and maybe it was, up until that time. And nine days from now the Irish and Buckeyes meet again with No. 1 on the line, and somewhere Bill Shakespeare and all the rest will be looking on. 

Somewhere else, meanwhile ...

Well, somewhere else, the usual cranks will be whining that this is why the expanded College Football Playoff is a dismal failure, because we're getting a team that lost to Northern Illinois vs. a team that lost twice. The logic of this, of course, eludes comprehension, because no one ever says the same about March Madness, which routinely produces champions who were not the favorites when the whole thing began.

So, yeah. It's the No. 8 seed vs. the No. 7 seed for the championship. Big whoop. All that means, as it sometimes does in March, is the committee under-seeded both teams.

In the end, all that matters is the Irish and the Buckeyes were better than their presumed betters when it counted. Which is exactly how a playoff is supposed to work, in case you've somehow missed every playoff ever played.

This one?

Come on, now. Notre Dame vs. Ohio State for the big prize?

How's that work out any better?