Brave new world
The 12-team College Football Playoff is nothing if not chaotic
Halfway through Thursday night’s Orange Bowl, which in college football’s radically new landscape also doubled as the national playoff semi-final, things were pretty much proceeding to plan.
The Penn State Nittany Lions (13-2) were up 10-3 over the Notre Dame Fighting Irish (13-1), with the Irish to receive the kickoff after the half. It was a one-score game. Both defences had been solid. This was exactly what the pre-game betting lines had suggested: Notre Dame was a slight favourite, although that line had tightened up as late money came in on Penn State, and the over/under total of 45.5 points suggested a relatively low-scoring affair, which made sense since both teams were strong defensively.
All systems normal.
And then chaos broke out. The Irish, having been unable to run the ball in the first half, promptly marched down the field for a touchdown to tie the game. Notre Dame scored again early in the fourth quarter to take the lead, and just when it seemed like the Irish had taken control of this thing and would cruise to victory, Penn State marched right back for a score of their own. Tie game again. Notre Dame’s Riley Leonard responded to that adversity by quickly throwing an interception — to a defensive lineman who had dropped into coverage! — and the Nittany Lions scored another quick touchdown on the short field. Suddenly the teams had combined for 28 points in about 12 minutes of game time and it was Penn State that had seized control.
And then this happened.
Irish receiver Jaden Greathouse — an excellent name, obviously — gets his defender to fall over at the line of scrimmage, receives the ball from Leonard in acres of space, puts another defender on his butt and strolls into the end zone for another touchdown.
If anyone felt they knew what would happen at this point, they were lying to themselves.
What did happen is that both offences tightened up with the game on the line and exchanged punts. The Nittany Lions had possession in the final minute and had a chance to drive into field position for a field-goal attempt with a few positive plays, but quarterback Drew Allar made a terribly ill-advised throw that was intercepted at about midfield. Now the Irish just needed a couple of plays to get into field-goal range, which they did.
Mitch Jeter hit the 41-yard kick for the win. Jeter, it is worth noting here, is a transfer from South Carolina. He’s part of college football’s new reality: Jeter has already graduated from South Carolina, but he still had a year of playing eligibility, and so he hopped in the transfer portal and ended up joining Notre Dame, where a spot in the 12-team playoff was a distinct possibility. And now he, and they, have a spot in the national title game.
The thing that is fascinating to me about all this is not just that there was a crazy game of college football, since that happens a lot, it’s that everything about the sport has been thrown off-kilter. For theScore this week, I wrote about how none of the traditional SEC powers even made the final four, which is wild on its own. But it’s also more than that: college football always had a certain rhythm. There were a few non-conference games at the start of the season, which were mostly blowouts but included the odd high-profile clash of big-name teams. Then the all-important conference schedule for a couple of months. That finished with conference championship games and a break for a few weeks before bowl season. Even with the addition of the four-team playoff, that didn’t change the calendar that much. The playoff teams had what would have been their usual bowl game (in this case doubling as a semi-final), then the winners had a bonus bowl game (the final) a week and a half later.
The 12-team playoff, as has become much more obvious as it unfolds, is wildly different. Notre Dame and Penn State played their first-round games on Dec. 20 and 21, then the quarterfinals a week and a half later, and then the semi-final game a week after that. (Ohio State and Texas, who meet in the other semi-final on Friday night, have played similar schedules.) College teams have simply never had to do this kind of thing, ever. Most big-name programs only have a few times all season in which they are not heavy favourites. That’s just the nature of a sport with 100-plus teams and maybe a half-dozen that are title contenders in any year. But now these playoff teams are having to play tough matchups again and again and again — and after they have already completed their conference schedules. If I had to guess what happened on Thursday night when both teams suddenly couldn’t stop scoring, I would say it’s because Notre Dame and Penn State were both exhausted. Gassed. Worn the eff out.
(Side note: I have no idea how the “student” part of student-athlete is being handled in the new system. These guys have been playing football since August!)
There are now, gasp, wheeze, just two games left. If nothing else, I’m pretty sure they won’t be boring.