Ohio State and defensive coordinator Jim Knowles have fielded the most impressive defense in college football the entire season.
Entering tonight's national title matchup with Notre Dame, the Buckeyes have the top ranked scoring defense in the country, the best pass defense in college football, and rank 3rd nationally in both run defense and sacks while ranking 7th in tackles for loss.
Stats never tell the whole story though, and there's a significant piece being left out of the story of Ohio State's defense this year.
According to Matt Hayes and USA Today, the Buckeyes haven't had a holding penalty go against the opposing offense in what can only be described as both maddening and frustrating amount of time.
The last time an Ohio State opponent had a holding call? September 21st in a win against Marshall.
Over the next nine regular season games (which include Michigan's 42 rush attempts), and three games in the college football playoff (including Oregon's 42 pass attempts in the Rose Bowl quarterfinals), there's been exactly zero holding calls against Buckeye opponents.
That's 728 plays from scrimmage without a holding call in their favor. Not a single guard called for holding on a pass play, or receiver called for it while blocking on a perimeter run or screen.
That harsh fact has reportedly led to Ryan Day reaching out to the Big Ten office for weeks, with concerns and complaints increasing during their playoff run.
Of those 728 plays, 207 of them have taken place in the College Football Playoff, where the officiating is supposed to be the cream of the crop as FBS programs send their highest rated crews to work the games.
The Irish enter tonight's game averaging 64 snaps per game on offense, so after tonight Day will have nearly 800 plays built up to further state his case.
An SEC officiating crew will work the matchup tonight between the Buckeyes and Irish, and with this information out there for everyone to see, Ryan Day won't be the only one keyed into potential holding calls and whether they are, or aren't being called.
...and that makes for yet another intriguing storyline in a national title game with no shortage of them.
Stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.