College Football Playoff Takeaways: Quarterfinals

Photo from USA Today Sports

If everyone hated the first round games, surely they appreciated a solid second round of playoff games.

Although, probably not.

Because fans of this sport just love to complain!

The newest complaint? That the playoff won’t reward the best team, but the hottest team come playoff time.

And that’s bad, obviously. Even though that’s how literally every other playoff works.

But, I digress.

Let’s get to the quarterfinal games.

Penn State defeats Boise State 31-14

The score states that this wasn’t close, but don’t be fooled.

Boise State, after a terrible first quarter, clawed back and had it at 17-14 in the third quarter.

That’s when Penn State leaned on Tyler Warren, and got a huge insurance touchdown to put the pressure back on Boise’s passing offense, which struggled most of the game.

Penn State now has back to back games where the game ended not in doubt, but they were far from the most impressive team in the world.

Now, in the final four, they better get things fixed, and quick.

Texas defeats Arizona State 39-31

First things first, that was clear targeting.

I’m not going to say it single handily cost Arizona State the game, because Arizona State had monumental kicking issues all year, but it’s not up for debate. That was targeting.

But other than that, and I know Texas won the game (and quick credit to Quinn Ewers for great composure on 4th and 13 to keep Texas season alive), but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention once again how incredible this turnaround was for Arizona State.

3-9 last year. Under probation with less scholarships due to the previous regimes recruiting violations.

11-3 this year, while being Big 12 champions and being one stop away from one of the top 4 teams in college football.

This was an incredible season for ASU, and they should hold their heads high despite the loss.

Ohio State defeats Oregon 41-21

Why was Ohio State the 8 seed?

I know they lost to Michigan at home, which was a bad, bad loss, but they were ranked behind 2 loss Texas with no good wins, 2 loss Penn State, who they beat already, and one loss Notre Dame who had a terrible loss to NIU.

This was a clear 5 seed in the new playoff format masquerading as an 8 seed, and Tennessee and Oregon have gotten the brunt of it.

Despite that, Oregon’s defensive performance was absolutely horrible.

Chip Kelly toyed with Dan Lanning’s defense, and schemed Jeremiah Smith open over and over again.

As excited as I am to see some newer teams in the final four, it feels like Ohio State is going to blow the doors off of everyone left.

Notre Dame defeats Georgia 23-10

Georgia not having Carson Beck and having to go to Gunnar Stockton was a problem.

In fact, it was why I didn’t think Georgia, even if they won against Notre Dame, had a chance to win it all.

But Stockton played well overall.

Which really means that, even with Carson Beck, Georgia just wasn’t beating Notre Dame.

I said it earlier this week.

Notre Dame is legitimately a very good football team.

The offense will not break records, but it doesn’t need to.

The defense is absolutely elite, keeping Georgia to two yards a carry, and the offense does enough to drain clock and get enough points to win.

This was most shown after Marcus Freeman’s brilliant fourth down call got Notre Dame a fresh set of downs, and got them to waste five more minutes of clock and close out the game.

Freeman was the better coach in a game against Kirby Smart’s Georgia team.

That’s the one thing I did not expect.