Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

As a fan of Duke basketball, I was pumped when the Blue Devils beat the University of Houston in last year, Sweet 16, at the NCAA men's basketball tournament.

I was also pleased that Crossttown rival University of North Carolina lost.

As a Christian, however, I celebrated the outspoken witness both of UNC Coach Hubert Davis

and Houston coach Kelvin Samson after those respective losses. An outspoken faith has also

been a part of the storyline in college football this season.

It's especially the case when it comes to Notre Dame and Ohio State, two teams that put together

incredible runs of victories in order to advance to Monday's college football playoff national

championship game. Though I was rooting for the Irish to complete their comeback after a tough

first half, it was not to be.

Capping, what must have been a very good day for J.D. Vance, Ohio State turned out to be just too much.

Though it's not unusual for athletes and coaches to thank God after big games, faith in Christ was

consistently and specifically credited for the culture of both programs.

So much so, in fact, that ESPN, Scott Van Pelt and Reese Davis made it a point of emphasis

in a lengthy part of their postgame analysis.

As Davis said, and I quote here, we hear a lot of times people talk about their faith and people sort of dismiss it.

These guys were sharing their faith and reaching out and baptizing guys on campus and not just

football teammates. And it became something powerful, not because they thought it was going to be

handed to them to win a game, but it changed their relationships. It changed selfishness and made

it go away. It didn't guarantee that they

were going to win, and Notre Dame had a lot of that going on as well. We heard Notre Dame coach

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