Here's what it was like to cover the 2025 College Football Championship Game

Good morning, and thank you for your continued support of Extra Points.

This will not be my only dispatch on the College Football Championship Game, which Ohio State won, 34-23. After I have time to fly back to Chicago, collect my thoughts and get some actual sleep for the first time in a week, I’d love to write more.

Right now, it’s 1:18 AM in the press box of Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The press conferences are over. The players have grabbed their boxes of Chick-fil-A and are leaving the stadium. The event staffers are beginning to sweep up the celebratory confetti..but not before they do a few snow angles on the 50 yard line.

This is not my typical work environment. I cover a few games each season, and of course, fly out to cover all sorts of conferences and administrator meetings. But I’ve never covered a National Championship Game before…and…ssshhh…I’ve never covered one won by my alma mater.

Before I trudge back to my hotel a few miles away, I thought I’d share with you a little about what that experience was like.

I can’t explain how the physics of this work, but NFL stadium big is not the same thing as college big.

I’ve spent a lot of time in huge college football stadiums. I went to Ohio State, after all, and the Horseshoe seats over 102,000 people, easily more than the capacity of any NFL stadium. I’ve been to Michigan, LSU, Nebraska, and plenty of other massive stadiums.

But standing on the field at Mercedes-Benz before kickoff felt bigger than almost anywhere else that I can remember in my career. More cavernous. More…epic?

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