After suffering through a debilitating NFL Divisional Round weekend, the public got some measure of revenge on the sportsbooks when the Ohio State Buckeyes defeated the Oregon Ducks to win the college football National Championship game at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

Sportsbooks had determined early on that the worst case scenario on this game would’ve been an Ohio State outright win, even though action on the game was less than initially expected. Still, the public came out putting money on the Buckeyes, which entered the game as touchdown underdogs against the Ducks.

The game started of quickly for the Ducks when the team scored a touchdown on its opening drive. But that was about it for Oregon, which saw Ohio State comeback to score 21 straight points. Oregon managed to pull within one, 21-20, in the third quarter, but the Buckeyes quickly shut down any possibility of an Oregon comeback with three straight touchdowns to seal the deal.

The result wasn’t as surprising as some people would like to believe, even if the Buckeyes opened as 7-point underdogs. Evidently, the public sensed something was amiss with the spread, pounding the Buckeyes and forcing sportsbooks to hunker down and thrown on their Oregon jerseys. Unfortunately, all that “quacking” couldn’t help Oregon, giving the public the kind of salvage victory it needed after getting pummeled in the Divisional Round of the NFL playoffs a few days earlier.

The only respite books can cling to was that action wasn’t as heavy as a lot of people expected. That could partly be due to scheduling quirks that forced the National Championship game to be played on a Monday night, instead of Saturday or Sunday night where there would’ve undoubtedly been more action on both sides. The books could also take solace in the fact that a lot of futures bets tied to the Oregon Ducks ended up on the losing side.

The college football National Championship is the closest thing to a dress rehearsal books will have leading up to the Super Bowl, which is scheduled to be played in a few week’s time. If given a choice, books would tell you that they’d prefer to lose out on the National Championship game than the Super Bowl. Only time will tell if this scenario proves to be the case. For now, it’s back to the drawing board in preparation for the NFL’s Conference Championship games this weekend.