Ohio State fans celebrate the Buckeyes’ national championship Sunday at the Shoe

When Mahi Patel and Janki Patel arrived at Ohio Stadium at 6:45 a.m. to get in line for Sunday’s national championship celebration, there were already nine others in front of them.

The Patels, Ohio State University students and cousins from Cleveland, followed the team with hopeful anticipation all season. Mahi Patel was lucky enough to score a student ticket to watch the Buckeyes compete against Notre Dame in Atlanta.

The two were among tens of thousands of Ohio State fans who flooded the stadium Sunday to celebrate the Buckeyes’ most recent national title and their second earned as part of the College Football Playoff. The Buckeyes won the first ever four-team playoff a decade ago and have now also won the first 12-team playoff.

Slated to start at noon, the gates for the celebration opened to fans at 10:30 a.m., but hundreds of people started lining up hours beforehand to get the best seats in the Shoe.

The event was free to attend and seating was available on a first come, first serve basis.

Mark Katona capped off 26 years as a redcoat usher at Sunday’s celebration. He was also in attendance at national championship celebrations in 2002 and 2015.

Ohio State officials estimated a crowd of at least 30,000. About 2,500 Ohio State students were huddled together in a standing-room-only section on the field.

But Katona guessed there could be closer to 50,000 fans thanks to slightly warmer weather Sunday.

“In 2002 there was a wind chill of 15 below, and there were at least this many people,” he said.

Fans watched a condensed version of the national championship game on the big screen at the Shoe while they waited for the team to arrive. Minutes before noon, The Best Damn Band in the Land marched down the ramp into Ohio Stadium to the beginning bars of Queen’s “We Are the Champions” before switching to the band’s traditional “Buckeye Battle Cry.”

As the sun began to shine through partly cloudy skies, TBDBITL members parted an aisle on the field for the Buckeyes to make their grand entrance into Ohio Stadium. Players, coaches and their families were met with raucous cheers from fans and the melodic sounds of the band playing “Across the Field” as they walked to a stage on stadium’s south end.