Ohio State football broke through, and then its fans broke in.

The Buckeyes won college football’s national championship Monday and the celebration into the wee hours of the night included an impromptu Ohio Stadium field storming by a group of intrepid fans back in Columbus, Ohio.

Students began flooding onto campus almost as soon as Ohio State’s 34-23 win over Notre Dame was over, the Columbus Dispatch reported, despite frigid temperatures in the Midwest. A crowd chanting “O-H,” “I-O,” eventually converged on “The Horseshoe” and successfully forced their way inside the venerable home of Ohio State football.

Videos shared on social media show swarms of fans ‒ some with flags, some dressed for the weather and some not wearing shirts ‒ holding up their phones to chronicle the scene as they walked en masse through the stadium tunnel and then spilled onto the familiar turf. Witnesses said police officers got in on the fun, taking photos for the fans reveling in the Buckeyes’ first national championship in football since 2014.

“It’s crazy. I was surprised that the cops are so supportive,” Natalie Freihammer, an Ohio State senior who took part in the celebration, told The Columbus Dispatch.

RYAN DAY: Shuts up critics with Ohio State title. ‘What they gonna say now?’

Ohio State underwent a remarkable turnaround over the past two months, rebounding from a loss to Michigan in its regular season finale to reel off four-straight wins and emerge on top of the sport once more after the first 12-team College Football Playoff. Losing to the Wolverines again led to more scrutiny about coach Ryan Day and the disappointment lingered into the Buckeyes’ first-round playoff game against Tennessee, when a larger-than-normal contingent of Volunteers’ fans were inside Ohio Stadium.

But Ohio State’s title run has muted those concerns and the fans returned in droves again Tuesday to welcome the Buckeyes back from Atlanta. The festivities will continue during an official celebration with the team and fans inside Ohio Stadium on Sunday at 12 p.m. ET, according to the university’s athletic department. Admission and parking are free, with more details to be released this week.

“There was a point where there was a lot of people that counted us out,” Day said after Monday’s game, “and we just kept swinging and kept fighting.”

Perhaps a few of those doubters were among the people breaking into Ohio Stadium after what these Buckeyes pulled off.

• Ryan Day becomes third active college football coach to win a national championship.
• Team meeting with Ryan Day after Michigan loss galvanizes Ohio State.
• Buckeyes players take up for Ryan Day, who won his first national championship in Year 6, same as Kirby Smart.

ATLANTA – Ryan Day stood at the back of the stage behind a wall of his jubilant players, beaming like a kid while a confetti cannon blasted paper into the air.

Ohio State’s coach earned that grin. He deserved that joy, after a season that brought unrelenting pressure, unapologetic blowback and, finally, triumph. Day is a national champion, one just three active coaches with that distinction.

“What they gonna say now?” Ohio State senior safety Lathan Ransom said, before exalting his coach.

The critics can’t say squat now, after Ohio State’s 34-23 win against Notre Dame, and the trolls crawled back into their caves. Day shut them up after his Buckeyes laid waste to the field in this College Football Playoff.

“Seeing Coach Day hoist up that trophy after seeing all the flak he got, all the, excuse my language, (crap) he’s gotten, it’s just amazing as a player to see our coach in the position that we know he should be,” senior offensive lineman Donovan Jackson said.

And what of Ohio State’s “lunatic fringe,” as Kirk Herbstreit dubs them? Those Bucks nuts probably will pretend they never wanted Day’s head on a platter just two months ago and chanted for his ouster after he suffered his fourth straight loss to Michigan.

“It’s funny now, right?” Ransom said, when a reporter reminded him of those angry chants after the Michigan loss. “We never stopped believing in Coach Day. We always had Coach Day’s back, and he always had our back.”

Don’t confuse this as the story of a plucky eighth-seeded underdog getting off the mat. Nobody could match Ohio State’s talent. This is the story of an embattled coach and a two-loss team realizing their potential.

“We stuck together,” Day said. “We hung in there like a family does when things get hard.”

OPINION: No super team in college football this season? Ohio State proves that’s a lie

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP: Bigger College Football Playoff, but familiar result: Elite talent prevails

Ohio State plays to billing after team meeting with Ryan Day

The annals of history might indicate that Ohio State’s loss to Michigan became a turning point, but Buckeyes players point to a team meeting that occurred days after that result as the fork in the road.

Day joined his players for a meeting that became an open forum to clear the air, offer critiques and unify behind a common goal.

Ransom won’t detail the specifics of what was said within those four walls, but he’ll tell you this much: Day let himself be vulnerable in that meeting. The Buckeyes respected him that much more because of that.

“Anything that anyone wanted to say, they got a chance to say it,” Ransom said. “Coach Day took some critiques from the players. That shows how great of a leader he is. That’s why we go out there and we play so hard for him.”

Try to imagine Nick Saban or Kirby Smart, for that matter, opening himself up to player critiques throughout a meeting. Yeah, I’m not seeing it. There’s more than one avenue to becoming a championship coach, although the common thread between Saban, Smart and Day is that all are elite recruiters who magnetize talent.

“Coach Saban was a more stoic person. Coach Day has a different type of relationship with the players, and I respect him for that,” said Buckeyes safety Caleb Downs, an Alabama transfer who touts the virtues of both coaches. “You’ve got to run your organization as who you are.”

Outside the program, the pitchforks came out after that Michigan loss. The headlines got spicy, the hot boards filled with potential replacements for a job not open, and an athletic director, for perhaps the first time in the sport’s history, needed to offer a vote of confidence for a coach who’d lost just 10 games throughout six seasons.

Inside the Woody Hayes Athletic Facility, the confidence remained strong in Day.

“We trusted in him,” senior defensive end JT Tuimoloau said.

The Buckeyes trusted, too, that despite two regular-season losses, they possessed a national championship team.

“Getting an opportunity to get in the playoffs, that’s all we needed,” Jackson said. “We just needed our foot in the door.”

Ryan Day nears Kirby Smart territory

Day, 45, is a year younger than Smart when the Georgia coach won his first national championship. Day’s first national title arrived in Year 6, just as Smart’s did, but Smart never faced an onslaught of criticism like that directed at Day after Michigan stunned the Buckeyes in November.

Couple of explanations for that that. Georgia does not define its self-worth based on the result of one game. Also, Smart wasn’t replacing Urban Meyer, and, even before his first national title, he lifted Georgia to heights Mark Richt never reached.

Day, in contrast, got shackled with the reputation that he started the job on third base, inheriting a blue blood in fine shape from Urban Meyer, and he couldn’t advance the remaining 90 feet to home.

Truth is, Day’s become a home-run hire, and if we conducted a draft of active college football coaches tomorrow, who would come off the board before Day, other than perhaps Smart? This list is short. It’s getting shorter.

Day built, developed and retained an unmatched level of talent. Yes, Ohio State’s NIL war chest helped, but the Buckeyes didn’t win this crown with an army of mercenary rent-a-players. The roster’s tentacles trace to Day stacking one elite recruiting class after another. Senior standouts found throughout Ohio State’s offensive and defensive starting units trace to Day’s 2020 and ’21 recruiting classes, before NIL came aboard.

The coordinator combo of Chip Kelly and Jim Knowles highlighted an elite coaching staff that schemed up a beautiful plan for this playoff romp, after Ohio State’s perplexing offensive approach against Michigan.

Day, in the offseason, completed the roster puzzle with portal prizes like Downs and quarterback Will Howard. As Howard peaked in the postseason, Day served a reminder of his deft hand developing quarterbacks.

Howard was a decent player at Kansas State, but he transcended into an ace throughout this playoff run, bringing his A game in four straight games while the Buckeyes averaged more than 36 points against four of the nation’s top defenses. That culminated with Howard completing his first 13 passes throughout a master class of quarterbacking against a Notre Dame team that failed to defend Ohio State’s vaunted assembly of wide receivers.

The Buckeyes buried Tennessee, routed Oregon, held firm against Texas and bent Notre Dame with a stretch of dominance that relegated the Michigan loss to a curious footnote in the story of a national champion.

“We’re resilient, man,” Jackson said. “At the beginning of this run, everyone had us dead. Everyone had us thrown aside.”

They’d thrown aside the coach, too, but what are they saying now?

Nothing left to say, except that Day persevered, and now he can smile the way champions do, while confetti blasts into the air.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer. Subscribe to read all of his columns.

Kirk Herbstreit is as professional as it comes when he calls college football games for ESPN.

However, the former Ohio State football quarterback could not control his emotions after the Buckeyes’ 34-23 win over Notre Dame in Monday’s College Football Playoff national championship game. In a segment with ESPN Sportscenter’s Scott Van Pelt, Herbstreit got emotional when talking about the national championship for the Buckeyes.

Buy Ohio State CFP championship books, posters, gear

“Don’t start with me, man. I am a little emotional,” Herbstreit said. “I’m just fired up for these guys. When I call these games, I am incredibly objective, and I love all these Ohio State teams, but this team, because of what they went through to get to this point, is just happy. Just happy for them.”

Van Pelt asked fellow commentator Chris Fowler a question to allow Herbstreit to collect himself. Then, he appeared back on screen with a napkin and wiped the tears away from his face.

The Buckeyes were denied a chance to play in the Big Ten Conference championship game after a major upset loss to rival Michigan in the final week of the regular season. However, Ohio State bounced back with four straight wins, including a win over No. 1 Oregon, to win the national championship.

Herbstreit attended Centerville High School in Centerville, Ohio, and played for the Buckeyes from 1989 to 1993. In his senior season, he earned a starting role and led the Buckeyes to the Florida Citrus Bowl. Herbstreit’s father, Jim Herbstreit, was a co-captain on the 1960 Ohio State team and later became an assistant coach.

With Monday’s win, the Buckeyes clinched their first national championship since 2014, the first year of the 4-team CFP. Monday’s championship game concluded the first version of the 12-team CFP.

ORDER MERCHANDISE: Shop for Ohio State football championship gear now!