The 2nd ever 12 team College Football Playoff took place starting Friday December 19th at 8 PM and ending Saturday December 20th late in the night, the 4 games that took place were Alabama @ Oklahoma, then Miami @ Texas A&M, Then Tulane @ Ole Miss, then James Madison @ Oregon. Here is a deep dive and Analysis of how each game went.
Alabama made the short trip to play Oklahoma in round one of the CFP, the winner of this game would go on to play Indiana in the Rose Bowl. This game started out fairly slow with no points coming until the 5:29 mark of the first Quarter, where QB Johnathan Mateer would rush up the middle for a 8 yard Touchdown, OU would then kick a Fieldgoal to go up 10 before throwing the first and only TD through the air to Isaiah Setegna. Alabama would not remain stagnant offensively as Ty Simpson would deliver a throw to Lotzier. Then right before the 2 minute time out Mateer would throw a pick six to Zabien Brown, outside of this INT he remained quiet with only a few more pass breakups after this. So now the score being tied the entire country wondered “what would Mateer do for OU” The answer Nothing, Alabama would continue their run of unanswered points with another Brooks TD grab, then kick a fieldgoal before Mateer would finally answer back with another TD, this time to Deion Burks to cut the deficit to 3. Alabama would then have a huge drive catapolted by the craziest catch ive ever seen, where Brooks would once again make the play, Simpson would throw it up to him and he would catch it over the defender before getting tackled in the redzone, and then to cap off the drive Daniel Hill would score the final points of the game the final score being 34-24 the Tide getting the chance to go and play Indiana in the Rose Bowl.
The second game has much less scoring, a very boring game, the wind factoring in on many missed field goals, and Miami even blocked 1. The final score was 10-3 with the only TD coming with 1:44 left in the 4th quarter, that TD being a Carson Beck pass to Malachi Toney. Beck finished with 103 yards, While Marcel Reed finished with 237 yards and 2 INTs. so not much to say about this game.
Then comes the 2 blowout games that could change the minds of the CFP committee going forward, as JMU got destroyed by the Oregon Ducks 51-34, and the Tulane Green Wave got obliterated on the road by Ole Miss 41-10. The reason I believe that the CFP will possibly change its mind in regards to who to let in the playoff is because I personally Believe that Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, BYU, or even Texas would be much better games than the 2 games that took place. I really hope that the committee sees this and they make serious changes.
All in all a pretty mediocre week in college football, next time the winners will play they will likely be multiple score underdogs. Hopefully we see some major upsets in CFP. We will see when these teams play on New Years Eve or New Years Day.