This is the final year of the four-team Playoff. What are our favorite memories from that format before we head to 12 teams next year? Our staff members make their picks (let us know yours in the comments below!):
Nicole Auerbach: My favorite memory came on the very first day of the very first year of the four-team CFP. It’s obvious, right? I was lucky enough to be assigned to cover the Alabama-Ohio State Sugar Bowl. I watched Cardale Jones and Ezekiel Elliott torch the top overall seed and welcome us into a world in which a one-loss team with its third-string quarterback had a chance to win a national championship. I often think back to how fortunate it was for the CFP that the No. 4 seed won it all in Year 1 — it immediately validated the idea that we needed to give more than two teams (in the BCS era) a chance to play for a title.
Matt Brown: I was fortunate to cover the first three CFP national title games in person from 2014 to 2016, and it’ll be hard to ever top standing at the goal line when Hunter Renfrow caught the winning touchdown from Deshaun Watson in the final seconds to give Clemson its first championship since 1981. Those first two Alabama-Clemson title games were exhilarating, and Jan. 9, 2017, in Tampa delivered one of the most memorable fourth quarters in college football history.
Chris Kamrani: Going back to Year 1 when the 2014 Oregon Ducks made a meme out of Jameis Winston. With the Ducks already in cruise control up 39-20 late in the third quarter of the semifinal against Florida State, Winston tried his best to make something out of nothing on a fourth-and-5, but after running around in circles for a bit, Winston lost his footing and the ball in admittedly hilarious fashion. It was such an awkward and hilarious fumble that those who live on the internet almost immediately made great use of it. Memes included: Stone Cold Steve Austin dropping a stunner on Winston, Lance Stephenson’s huffing and puffing Winston over and many more. Sure, there have been great games and plays, but gimme the hilarity.
Stewart Mandel: It has to be second-and-26. I was standing on the opposite sideline, preparing for what looked like a looming Georgia win, when Tua Tagovailoa uncorked that bomb to DeVonta Smith. And I just remember the abruptness of it — wait, Alabama just won the national title! How did that happen? And two superstars were born on that play.
Austin Meek: My lasting memory of the four-team Playoff era was covering Oregon in the very first CFP to close out the 2014 season. The Ducks routed Florida State and Winston in the Rose Bowl that year to advance to the CFP championship game at JerryWorld, where they lost to Ohio State. This season brought everything full circle: another Rose Bowl semifinal, another title game in Texas, another Big Ten-Pac-12 matchup. With the Playoff expanding and the Pac-12 disintegrating, this truly is the end of an era.
Manny Navarro: The first 10 years of the Playoff era have just been about watching everyone try to top Alabama for supremacy. It has taken some monumental efforts and luck to take Nick Saban’s teams down. Watson went for 463 yards and four touchdowns and finally got Clemson over the hump in 2017 with a last-second touchdown pass. Georgia needed a fourth-quarter explosion and a late pick six to rally past the Tide in the 2022 championship game. Michigan took advantage of a few bad snaps by Alabama and then a breakdown in overtime to win the Rose Bowl last week. Alabama just doesn’t lose often, and seeing the Tide fight to survive in some big Playoff battles has been very entertaining.
Mitch Sherman: Georgia’s 54-48 win against Oklahoma in the semifinals on New Year’s Day 2018 had it all. There was star power, with Heisman Trophy winner Baker Mayfield and his great receivers against Jake Fromm and the Bulldogs’ stable of running backs. There was the iconic venue. And the game featured drama aplenty as Georgia, in its first Rose Bowl trip in 75 years, came back from 17 points down to win on Sony Michel’s breakaway run in the second overtime period.
Daniel Shirley: The Alabama-Clemson run from 2015 to 2019 felt like peak Playoff. Alabama held off Clemson in a thriller 45-40 in their first matchup to wrap up the 2015-16 season, and then Clemson came back the next year to beat Alabama 35-31 in an even bigger thriller. Alabama recovered just nicely from that the next year, beating Georgia in overtime before Clemson routed Alabama to cap 2018-19 for its second title in three years. Four years, two titles each for Alabama and Clemson. LSU stopped the run in the 2020-21 season.
Audrey Snyder: There was something so magical about watching Joe Burrow and that star-studded LSU offense eventually dismantle Clemson. LSU’s 17-7 deficit early in the second quarter made for the perfect amount of drama in a national title game that often hasn’t had a lot of it. As Burrow went to work with that receiving corps, it was clear we were all witnessing something memorable and historic. This team was fun to watch, and this game was no exception. Burrow, fresh off his Heisman Trophy nod, finished with six touchdowns. Perhaps the greatest offense ever — and the image of the QB smoking a celebratory cigar afterward — will forever be one of the special moments from this era.
Jesse Temple: Clemson’s 35-31 victory against Alabama in the 2017 national championship game stands out because it marked the Tigers’ first of two titles under Dabo Swinney and avenged a loss to the Crimson Tide one year earlier. It was a great back-and-forth game that featured three lead changes in the final 4:38, the last of which came on Watson’s 2-yard touchdown pass to Renfrow with one second remaining.
David Ubben: There are a handful of plays that stand out to me. Winston’s fumble, Renfrow’s catch, Sony Michel’s Rose Bowl run, but it doesn’t get any more iconic than Tua Tagovailoa rescuing Alabama with a young Devonta Smith on second-and-26. Alabama was buried, and after taking an awful sack, it looked like Georgia finally was going to climb the mountain and defeat the team that eluded it under Kirby Smart. It wasn’t meant to be. Alabama was still the king of the sport. For a little longer, at least.
Chris Vannini: Ohio State’s win against Alabama in 2014. People might forget how exclusionary the BCS felt. So in the first year, watching No. 4 seed Ohio State beat No. 1 seed Alabama set the tone that this was a new era when more teams could have a shot at the national championship. It’s debatable how much that happened during the next decade, but that game was also a stunner because the Buckeyes beat the Tide with third-string quarterback Cardale Jones. It was a shocking moment that gave other teams hope that if they could just get in the field, they could have a chance.
Justin Williams: Cincinnati’s 2021 CFP run. I had a front-row seat for the only Group of 5 team to ever make the four-team Playoff. The stars had to align for the Bearcats to even be in the conversation for a Playoff spot, and thanks to a top-10 road win over Notre Dame and a few two-loss power-conference champs, the team earned its spot. I’m glad the 12-team format (currently) has a slot for a Group of 5 team. Cincinnati proved how near-impossible it was to make a four-team field as a G5 program. Getting to cover it up close was special.
(Photo: Will Lester / MediaNews Group / Inland Valley Daily Bulletin via Getty Images)
2024-01-07 18:39:55
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