New Year’s Playoff Set For College Football Final Four

Update: The University of Georgia will face Texas Christian University (TCU) in college football’s National Championship game, 8 pm Monday, Jan. 9 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif. The Georgia Bulldogs are heavy favorites to the underdog TCU Horned Frogs.

Football’s final four were set earlier this month. 

Who remains standing with a chance to win college football’s National Championship? 

Georgia has stayed dominant. 

Michigan continued to post strong wins. 

TCU couldn’t remain perfect, but fell to conference opponent, Kansas State.

And despite watching from the sidelines, The Ohio State Buckeyes snuck back into contention when eventual Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams couldn’t lead his USC Trojans to a revenge win over Utah. 

As a result, all of these College Football Playoff games will take place on New Year’s Eve.

Georgia

Stetson Bennett looked strong, easily handling LSU who people thought could give the bulldogs trouble. But the Tigers weren’t just handled, they were manhandled. The Bulldogs are 27-1in the last two seasons and are on a 15-game win streak and they hope to ride that wave and beat the Buckeyes and retain the titles as Champions, at basically a home-game in Atlanta in the Mercedes-Benz Stadium. There’s not much more that can be said about the reigning national champions.

Michigan

The Number One offense I’ve producer for the Wolverines Black Corum injured his knee against the Fighting Illini. When the team went to Columbus to play the Buckeyes he tried to play through the pain, he in all honesty made the injury worse. He only played 2 plays the entire game. And recently has decided to get surgery and will miss out on the College Football Playoff. Even without him, the Wolverines were able to keep up with Ohio State in the first half. But throughout the season it’s been nearly the same, as the game at halftime seems to be close, but in the second half the Wolverines start to fly and pull away from their opponent. And that game was no different outscoring the Buckeyes 28-3 in the second half. People always knew that Michigan were good but always wondered if they could hit that next gear and be an actual big boy and compete with the College superpowers and giants. And this showed that even without Corum the primary yard producer they did and can beat down the big guns.

With a win of 45-23 they moved on to the Big Ten Championship versus Purdue already basically securing a number two spot with a TCU loss earlier in the day and a USC loss the day before. But they didn’t let that distract them from the task at hand and although it was close at halftime as it tends to be, like the game prior Michigan hit that new gear and destroyed the Boilermakers in the second half. I guess you can say they steamrolled them very thoroughly, no? OK.

The Wolverines now have been assigned with the task of slowing down TCU in Glendale on New Year’s Eve. As long as they can stay focused and not look too far ahead towards the National Championship the Wolverines should be able to handle the Horned Frogs with relative ease as no Big 12 school has ever one a CFP game, but Michigan just has to hope that they can keep that record intact.

TCU

Although they fell to K-State they unlike USC were undefeated before going into the weekend. And the Playoff committee thought that it was a great enough achievement to let them stay in the top four. And for anyone from the outside they obviously deserved the fourth spot but because Ohio State played Michigan only two weeks ago they can’t have two teams in the same conference playing each other in the semifinals, so TCU got lucky and still have to play Michigan.

Underestimating TCU may be Michigan’s downfall. The Wolverines should go into this game with an open mind. The danger is to look ahead. Focus on the football the team on the field.

Ohio State:

The Buckeyes played Michigan at home and looked strong through the first half leading at half time. But unfortunately for State, Michigan is a second half-time outscoring their opponents 28-3 in the 2nd half. Stunning Ohio State 45-23, which would mean that the Buckeyes would not be going to the Big Ten Championship Game for a second year in a row. With the loss the committee placed them from 2nd to 5th in the playoffs. But luckily for them with the PAC-12 Championship choke of USC, they were able to slip in just barely over Alabama (Thank goodness). So with a win from the Buckeyes and Wolverines the greatest rivalry in football, possibly all sports depending on who you ask, may be in the limelight in the championship game in Los Angeles and also might be able to enact their revenge for what happened two weeks ago.

Illinois

With five weeks left in the season the Illini looked like a shoe-in for the Big Ten Championship game but quickly those hopes crumbled. Whether it came to refs legitimately cheating, phantom calls, or a close losses because the other team got lucky (Yes. That’s Michigan. Thank God we won. Phew!), ILL made their fans ill as their season ended out of competition for the Big Ten West Title. 

Although it was a bad end to a seemingly promising season, the Fighting Illini were still eligible for a bowl and got selected for one against Mississippi State. It’s called the ReliaQuest Bowl in Tampa Bay Florida. The game will be on January 2 and the Illini will get to prove themselves and hopefully start next season ranked with a win against 24th ranked Mississippi State, who will be dealing with sudden death of their head coach Mike Leach. Rest in peace, Coach Leach.