This is a huge day for JD Vance. The pressure, the anxiety, the nerves – all as the world watched his every move.

It’s hard to fathom how the 40-year-old father of three grappled with the weight on his shoulders knowing the scale of the challenge that loomed. That challenge, of course, is the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team.

Oh, you thought I was talking about the whole second highest office in the land thing? That whole “heartbeat away from the presidency” gig he was sworn in to assume at noon?

Nah.

No disrespect to the vice presidency (though, to be fair, the nation’s first vice president John Adams called the job “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived” in a letter to his wife Abigail. In Vance’s defense, the role has expanded dramatically in the two-plus centuries since.)

But Vance’s resume includes a line with far deeper meaning than any elected office: graduate of The Ohio State University.

Yes, Vance is a Buckeye and his alma mater plays Notre Dame in the college football national championship game Monday night.

And Vance is, by all accounts including his own, a real football fan.

As evidence, take what Vance told Theo Von during an appearance on Von’s podcast “This Past Weekend” during the campaign.

Vance then apologized for his use of profanity, sheepishly acknowledging “too many F bombs I’m gonna lose too many votes so I’ll try to tone it down.”

The collision of Vance’s sports allegiances and the need for swing state votes was a regular topic on the trail for the new VP, who in the weeks leading into Election Day appeared to spend so much time in the battleground state of Michigan that he’d have to account for it when he filed his taxes this year.

Or, as Vance may put it now the election is over, the battleground “state up North.” (Seriously – Ohio State fans don’t actually say “Michigan” and the week of the Ohio State-Michigan game inevitably leads to rolls of red tape being used to cross out every letter “M” on the university’s Columbus campus.)

Vance addressed the challenge of political necessity running headlong into passionate fandom at the Ohio inaugural ball in Washington the night before inauguration.

Vance, who carried with him a personalized Ohio State football jersey with his name gifted to him by Ohio GOP Sen. Bernie Moreno, took to the stage and quickly got to the most important issue on the next day’s schedule.

“First of all, I gotta give a shoutout to our Buckeyes,” Vance told the roaring crowd, according to a cellphone video of the event provided by an attendee to CNN. The crowd quickly broke into the traditional Buckeye call and response of “O-H” “I-O.”

Then Vance told a story of several voters in Michigan who told Vance they supported the Trump-Vance ticket, but Vance would lock up even more votes if he just said he supported the Wolverines.

That whole inauguration thing is running several hours behind schedule and almost assures that the new vice president wouldn’t be able to catch much of the game in between the official events and the inaugural balls that follow.

Vance was rather prescient on that front, too.

“Hopefully everyone is cool with me skipping the inauguration so I can go to the national title game,” he posted on X moments after Ohio State defeated the University of Texas in the national semifinal game.

The terminally online Vance – he is the nation’s first millennial vice president after all – then posted this meme:

Apparently, some took him seriously.

“I really wish they could move the game until Tuesday,” Vance told Fox News a few days later. “If you’re watching this show and you have the power, I’d really like to watch the Buckeyes and I don’t want to be at the inaugural ball staring at my phone because we’re watching Ohio State versus Notre Dame. So, let’s move that game. But if not, I’ll be rooting for the Buckeyes in spirit.”