CHICAGO -- The college football regular season is complete. Now it's on to conference championship weekend and then the playoffs and bowl games.
Before we turn our attention to the postseason, here's a quick look at how Big Ten teams and Notre Dame finished Week 14 -- including a few wild weather games.
Illinois' defense comes up big in the snow to win The Hat
Illinois was clinging to a four-point lead against Northwestern in the fourth quarter Saturday at Gies Memorial Stadium when Miles Scott darted forward to intercept a Preston Stone pass and returned it 33 yards.
The Illini turned that takeaway into a David Olano 27-yard field goal and a seven-point lead.
Five Northwestern plays and a minute later, Scott did it again. His second interception off a tipped pass helped Illinois pull off a 20-13 victory over the Wildcats (6-6, 4-5) on a snowy night in Champaign. The Illini (8-4, 5-4) held off one final NU drive to win the Land of Lincoln Trophy, also known as The Hat.
Illinois had four takeaways in the win, including three interceptions of Stone. Torrie Cox Jr. had the other pick near the end of the second quarter, leading to Kaden Feagin's 1-yard touchdown run and a 14-10 Illini halftime lead.
Stone also had a fumble that Leon Lowery Jr. recovered and was sacked twice by Gabe Jacas.
In reflecting on Scott's big game, Illinois coach Bret Bielema recalled how the now-senior safety arrived in Champaign as a non-scholarship wide receiver.
"Literally after the first spring drills, I knew he was a DB," Bielema told reporters at his postgame news conference. "I just couldn't do it to him because he was paying his own way. After the second year, I said, 'Hey my friend, I've got an idea. I'm going to give you a scholarship. You've got to move to defense.' ... I think he'll be a good NFL player. They're really excited about him."
Love suffers a rib injury during No. 9 Notre Dame's 49-20 win against Stanford
Jeremiyah Love, the Irish junior running back and Heisman Trophy candidate, started off Notre Dame's scoring at Stanford with a milestone. Love’s 21st touchdown of the season - on a 2-yard carry midway through the first quarter - broke the Notre Dame record set by Jerome Bettis in 1991.
But he left the game later in the first half with what coach Marcus Freeman told reporters at his postgame news conference was a rib injury. Love returned for five more carries in the second and third quarter and finished with 14 carries for 66 yards and a touchdown. The Irish routed Stanford 49-20.
Freeman said he left it up to Love whether he wanted to return.
"I know he wanted to go out there to put on a Heisman Trophy-worthy performance," Freeman said. "And we owed it to him to say, 'If you feel like you can go, go.' That tells you the type of competitor he is. I know he's hurting, but he wanted to go. And it was safe for him. We wouldn't put him in harm's way."
Love will have some time to recover as the Irish wait their playoff fate.
Notre Dame's win - one week after a 70-7 romp of Syracuse - helps position the Irish for a possible College Football Playoff berth despite not having a conference championship game to play in. But there are several other contenders in play for an at-large berth.
"If you talk about a team that is probably playing as well as anyone right now. We've won 10 straight games in a row, all of them by double-digit points," Freeman said. "You talk about who are the best teams now. Not Week 1, now. And it's hard to argue we aren't one of those teams."
Illinois staff works to get the Gies Memorial Stadium field ready for the finale
After Illinois finished its regular season 8-4, several photographers took shots of players climbing snowdrifts and throwing snowballs to celebrate.
A winter storm blanketed Central Illinois with snow Saturday morning and afternoon ahead of the game. The Illini said that more than a half-foot of snow fell in Champaign on Saturday, more than any game in Gies Memorial Stadium history.
That meant Illinois workers spent hours clearing the field and stands so that the game could go on as scheduled. Bielema thanked "all the people that made the game happen today."
"It didn't look too good about four hours out, but I knew there were a lot of things in place," he said.
The weather made for an unusual experience for the Illini.
"Usually I'm getting in trouble for being on the field, but (somebody) tapped me and I just about got clipped by a tractor going by with a snow plow," Bielema said. "So it was kind of a unique game day experience."
The Big Ten gets the matchup everyone has been waiting for
The No. 1 team -- and defending national champion -- against the No. 2 team in the country. The only undefeated teams left in FBS. Two quarterbacks in the running for the Heisman Trophy. One of the best offenses in the country against the best defense.
That's what the Big Ten has on tap for Saturday's championship game between No. 1 Ohio State and No. 2 Indiana in Indianapolis. The conference's first title game between undefeated teams will be must-watch TV, even if both seem likely to receive first-round playoff byes no matter what.
No. 2 Indiana (12-0, 9-0) secured its first trip to the championship game with a 56-3 destruction of Purdue on Friday to complete its first undefeated season since 1945.
No. 1 Ohio State (12-0, 9-0) had a taller task Saturday, but still cruised to a 27-9 win over No. 15 Michigan.
The title game comes less than 48 hours before the Heisman Trophy voting closes - with Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza and Ohio State QB Julian Sayin among the leading candidates for the award. That adds even more intrigue to the mix, especially with Mendoza set for his biggest test against Ohio State's defense.
Sayin and his supporting cast finally end Michigan’s streak
Ohio State hadn't beaten Michigan since 2019, entering Saturday's game in Ann Arbor, Mich., with four straight losses in the rivalry.
Sayin's early interception helped Michigan take a 6-0 first-quarter lead. But buoyed by the return of top wide receivers Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate - who combined for eight catches for 122 yards and two touchdowns - Sayin was on point from there.
Sayin, in his first year starting for the Buckeyes, completed 19 of 26 passes for 233 yards and three touchdowns in the snow. It was the biggest win of Sayin's career - just as he prepares for much bigger tests ahead.
His performance helped Ohio State and coach Ryan Day break a weighty losing streak to the Wolverines.
"To tell you that the last four years have been easy is not true," Day told reporters after the game."I take the responsibility of being the head coach at Ohio State very, very seriously.So does my family;so do players;so do coaches.So when you don't accomplish those things,you take it personally.
"But to win this game,it's just a great moment.One of those moments that you want to just grab on for awhile and just enjoy it.Because just to see the joy on everybody's face is really what this thing's all about."