And now, 16 thoughts from an unanticipated three-day College Football Playoff quarterfinal bonanza.

1. Let me start by acknowledging the awful New Year’s tragedy in New Orleans, a beautiful city that goes all out every year for its much-beloved bowl game. I have made many Sugar Bowl visits to the French Quarter, and in fact, the last time I was there, stayed right on Canal Street. Hats off to all involved for figuring out how to hold the game in a timely manner while ensuring the safety of all who attended.

2. The folks who designed the 12-team College Football Playoff did everything in their power to reward conference champions, from automatic berths to byes to, in a couple of cases, artificially high seeding. But they can’t win the games for them. And so, the first semifinal field of the new era will comprise the SEC’s runner-up (Texas), the Big Ten’s runner-up (Penn State), the Big Ten’s fourth-place team (Ohio State) and an independent (Notre Dame).

They’ll probably go and tweak the format next year. In the meantime, Notre Dame-Penn State (Thursday’s Orange Bowl) and Ohio State-Texas (Friday’s Cotton Bowl) is a heck of a doubleheader.

3. The first thing that stands out: three schools from the East and Midwest, none from the Southeast (though Texas, located in the Southwest, is now in the Southeastern Conference). It’s like 1976 came back from the dead. We’d become so accustomed to schools from the traditional SEC footprint (including the ACC’s Clemson and Florida State) dominating the sport that I’d genuinely come to believe by the mid-2010s that Ohio State was the only remaining northern school capable of winning a national championship.

But then Michigan did it last season. And now, a year later, either Penn State or Notre Dame will play for their first since the 1980s. The portal and NIL have been gradually negating the South’s geographic advantage in high school recruiting. Not to mention the SEC just wasn’t very good this year.

If only Brian Kelly had seen what was coming, he may never have gotten the chance to enjoy that delicious Texas Bowl rib.

4. Notre Dame, at long last, has vanquished its 31-year drought without a major bowl victory. That the seventh-seeded Irish (13-1) did it by toppling No. 2 seed and SEC champion Georgia (11-3), 23-10, must have made it an even sweeter Sugar Bowl win. Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman, formerly Kelly’s defensive coordinator, and DC Al Golden have spent the past three years building a Georgia-esque defense that sent relentless pressure at the Bulldogs’ first-time starting quarterback Gunner Stockton and shut down their running game.

Mind you, the Irish’s offense struggled even more so, averaging just 4.0 yards per play. But Notre Dame completely swung the game just before halftime. RJ Oben’s strip-sack and Junior Tuihalamaka’s recovery with 33 seconds left set up an immediate Riley Leonard 13-yard touchdown pass to go up 13-3. Then, Jayden Harrison opened the third quarter with a 98-yard kick return touchdown. That defense, even with mounting injuries, was not going to squander a 20-3 lead. To top it off, Freeman successfully pulled off one of the more creative special teams tricks you’ll see to snuff out the Bulldogs’ last hopes.

JAYDEN HARRISON

9️⃣8️⃣ YARDS#GoIrish | @j_harrison5

pic.twitter.com/58i6kwbw3H

— Notre Dame Football (@NDFootball) January 2, 2025

5. As the game wound down, I got a text from a friend who aptly noted that the 38-year-old Freeman has managed to do something the previous 100 years of Irish coaches could not: Make Notre Dame football likable. Anecdotally, it feels like the hate has been softening ever since the polarizing Kelly bolted to LSU. Sure, the Irish still elicit mockery when they lose to Marshall or NIU. But I’m guessing most neutral fans who tuned in to watch Freeman-led Notre Dame face a perennially hyped SEC opponent found themselves rooting for the Irish.

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6. We’ll never know whether Georgia would have fared better had veteran quarterback Carson Beck not been lost for the season in the SEC Championship Game. But something was never quite right with this year’s Dawgs, the preseason No. 1 team that dug itself a 30-7 hole against Alabama, got blown out at Ole Miss and survived all manner of close calls. It’s a disappointment for Kirby Smart, who fielded yet another loaded defense full of soon-to-be NFL Draft picks only to fall short of the final four for a second straight season. Georgia just never found its mojo.

Unlike another loaded team that underachieved during the regular season.

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7. Only Ryan Day can say why Ohio State’s offense has erupted so profoundly in its CFP routs over No. 9 seed Tennessee (42-17) and No. 1 seed Oregon (41-21). The best guess is he finally stopped worrying whether Lou Holtz, Jim Harbaugh or college football podcasters think his team is tough enough, and instead just let it rip. After inexplicably trying and failing to establish the run in the Nov. 30 Michigan debacle, the Buckeyes’ game plan the past two weeks seemed to be: “We’re going to throw deep to our stud receivers, and you can’t stop it.”

In jumping to a 34-0 second-quarter Rose Bowl lead over 13-0 Oregon, the eighth-seeded Buckeyes (12-2) broke off four touchdowns of 40-plus yards, the first three of which were Will Howard passes to Jeremiah Smith (seven catches, 187 yards, two TDs) and Emeka Egbuka (five catches, 72 yards, one TD). Running back TreVeyon Henderson then burst for a 66-yard run. It evoked memories of Day’s first Ohio State team in 2019, led by Justin Fields, that destroyed its first 12 opponents and got to 13-0 before losing a semifinal heartbreaker to Clemson.

Perhaps it took losing to the Wolverines a fourth straight time for the Buckeyes to finally stop playing tight and start playing with swagger. No. 5 seed Texas (13-2) has the unenviable task of taking on this version of Ohio State in a clash of the two best defenses in college football this season. I don’t believe the Buckeyes will score 40 points on the Horns. But at this point, I wouldn’t rule it out.

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8. The thrilling Texas-Arizona State Peach Bowl was a testimonial for why the 12-team Playoff exists. In the old system, an 11-2 Big 12 champion like ASU would have played in a New Year’s Six bowl against a disinterested SEC opponent, and Sun Devils star Cam Skattebo may have opted out of the game. But with a trip to the semis on the line, ASU’s top-five Heisman finisher put on one of the greatest individual bowl performances I’ve seen.

With his team down 24-8 to Texas midway through the fourth quarter, the do-everything running back proceeded to throw a 42-yard touchdown, catch a 62-yard pass, score a 2-yard touchdown and convert a 2-point attempt to tie the game at 24-24. (All of this after vomiting on the sideline at one point because he “drank too much water too fast.”)

Though his team lost 39-31 in double overtime, Skattebo personally accounted for an astonishing 284 yards. A non-traditional program took one of the bluest of bluebloods to the brink in a delightfully entertaining game. The whole thing felt very March Madness-esque, with Skattebo playing the role of Steph Curry at Davidson nearly taking down Kansas in the Elite Eight.

Mr. Do-It-All back at it again!#ForksUp pic.twitter.com/CPzOG45b8d

— Sun Devil Football (@ASUFootball) January 1, 2025

9. Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers has been up and down for most of the season, but he was at his best when his team needed him most in overtime. Arizona State had all the momentum when the Horns took over in the bottom of the first overtime down 31-24. Facing a do-or-die fourth-and-13, Ewers found Matthew Golden in the back of the end zone for a 28-yard touchdown, then came right back on the next play with a 25-yard TD to Gunnar Helm. Texas’ defense closed it out from there, with Andrew Mukuba’s interception sealing it.

Ewers (20-of-30 for 322 yards, three TDs and one INT), who finished with his highest pass efficiency rating (183.2) since a Nov. 9 win over Florida, will need to be at his absolute best against Ohio State, which boasts the only defense ranked higher than Texas.

10. Arizona State coach Kenny Dillingham sounded like a lot of us when he said after the game, “I’m going to be honest; I just don’t know what targeting is.” According to several prominent rules analysts, Michael Taaffe’s helmet-to-helmet hit on Sun Devils receiver Melquan Stovall with 1:15 left in regulation fit every criteria for targeting, yet no flag came out and replay upheld the call, forcing ASU to punt rather than continue a potential game-winning drive. It was so egregious that Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark issued a statement Thursday saying, “We need to address CFP officiating to ensure national standards are developed.”

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I don’t see that happening, but I have a more modest suggestion. When an official announces a targeting review decision in either direction, go ahead and tell us why it was or wasn’t overturned. Because we’re all stumped.

To be clear:

1. He took aim at an opponent for purposes
of attacking with forcible contact that goes beyond making a legal tackle or a legal block or playing the ball.
2. He led with his head.
3. He made forcible contact to the head/neck area of a defenseless receiver using his… https://t.co/oEAot8DGB8

— Terry McAulay (@tjmcaulay) January 1, 2025

My phone has been burning up all morning.

Yes, this should have been a flag for targeting in #TEXvsASU. It meets all of the criteria of targeting (Rule 9-1-4). pic.twitter.com/tv5HPIQgd0

— Gene Steratore (@GeneSteratore) January 2, 2025

11. While answering an unrelated question in his postgame news conference, Penn State coach James Franklin gave a shout-out to his boss, AD Pat Kraft, his “boss’s boss,” president Neeli Bendapudi, and his “boss’s boss’s boss,” a chairman of the board. And then he threw in this line: “Sometimes it feels like all the media and people on blogs — like I work for them sometimes, too.”

Franklin is notoriously thin-skinned and fully aware of what’s said/written about him — like his inability to win big games. Many will say he still hasn’t done so, given Penn State drew SMU and Boise State as its first two opponents, but reaching the CFP semifinals is a big deal for a program that hasn’t seriously contended for a national championship in two decades.

Now the Nittany Lions have to go out and prove they can beat Notre Dame.

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12. Penn State’s running back tandem of Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen has exploded over the back half of the season. They averaged a combined 7.6 yards per carry in Penn State’s 31-14 win against Boise State. Quarterback Drew Allar made several NFL throws, including his two touchdown passes to tight end Tyler Warren. And its defense did a better job containing Broncos star Ashton Jeanty than any team this season. When a reporter asked Franklin how Penn State was able to “sort of corral” Jeanty, who finished with 104 yards on 30 carries, the coach quickly shot back, “I think we did corral him. Not ‘sort of.’”

But the Nittany Lions need star defensive end Abdul Carter healthy next week. The projected top-five pick left Tuesday’s game in the second quarter with an undisclosed upper-body injury and did not return. Boise quarterback Maddux Madsen immediately got into rhythm, eventually throwing a 53-yard touchdown pass to Matt Lauter. (Penn State obviously clamped down by the fourth quarter.) That D-line is strong across the board, but Carter is a game-changer.

13. Tuesday night’s Fiesta Bowl was the 10th CFP bowl game I’ve covered, and it was my first time seeing empty seats (I’d estimate 10 percent of capacity). This was hardly surprising given one of the teams, Penn State, was located across the country from Arizona, and its fans had 10 days to arrange travel, much of which was prohibitively expensive. Meanwhile at the Peach Bowl, which organizers announced as a sellout, my colleagues in attendance estimated around 20 percent empties. (I’m exempting the Sugar Bowl from this item for obvious reasons.)

And those games fell on a holiday. I talked to a couple of bowl executives at the game and could tell they were nervous about next week’s Orange and Cotton semifinals, which fall on a Thursday and Friday. (Note: This was before Texas advanced to the Cotton.) Most outside the industry assume it’s a matter of when, not if, at least one more round moves to campus sites, but this being college football, it will likely take years for anyone in charge to make those types of decisions.

However, there’s nothing stopping the commissioners from making at least one sensible format change immediately.

14. It can’t be a coincidence that all four teams with byes dug themselves early holes. (In Oregon’s case, a massive hole.) They had nearly four weeks to build up rust while their opponents had a regular off week, played a game, turned around 10 days later and played another. But of course, every coach would still rather play one less game and avoid injuries if they have the opportunity.

The much bigger issue is the artificial seeding. It’s absurd the No. 1 seed, Oregon, played a higher-ranked team (No. 6 Ohio State) in the quarterfinals than either No. 5 seed Texas (12th-ranked Arizona State) or No. 6 Penn State (ninth-ranked Boise State). If the seeding went by actual rankings, Oregon would have faced either No. 8 Indiana or No. 9 Boise State in its quarterfinal, whereas No. 4 Penn State would likely have drawn No. 5 Notre Dame.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey agrees. And he was one of the four people who designed the thing. Before Thursday’s Sugar Bowl, he said the format was devised prior to the most recent wave of realignment and needs to be revisited. “We’ve got a responsibility to have what I would consider is a competitive and fair format.”

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15. That being said, it’s clear in hindsight that Oregon was not going to win the national championship. Its defense, so strong for most of the season, got exposed by Penn State in the Big Ten title game before collapsing altogether. And the same offensive line that protected Dillon Gabriel so well in its first Ohio State game looked hapless the second time, allowing eight sacks. Even with proper seeding, Oregon may have bowed out in the semifinals. That still would have been a more satisfactory ending to its special season than the one it got.

16. We’ll have the next week to break down the semifinals, but I’ll close by noting a significant milestone in the Orange Bowl. The winning coach, either Penn State’s Franklin or Notre Dame’s Freeman, will become the first Black head coach at the FBS level to take a team to the national championship game. That’s no small thing. They were two of just nine Black head coaches at the Power 4 level this season, or 13 percent, in a sport where nearly half the players are Black.

I’m sure whichever wins next week will be honored to carry that mantle. But also, stressed beyond belief to prepare for Ohio State.

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(Photo: Sean Gardner / Getty Images)