For the first time ever, the New Year’s Holiday played host to the four quarterfinals of the College Playoff. The Fiesta Bowl was played on New Year’s Eve, the Peach Bowl and Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day, and kickoff for the Sugar Bowl was understandably delayed until January 2nd in the aftermath of the horrific tragedy in New Orleans.
When the games were all played, we had one instant classic, one shocking blowout, and a couple traditional powers returning to prominence in new ways. Here’s what I find myself thinking about with a couple days to process.
Texas 39 Arizona St 31 (2OT)
There is so much that could be said about this one. Let’s start with Cam Skattebo, the best college football player of this past season. That’s no disrespect to Ashton Jeanty, the marvelous running back for Boise State who was the most productive running back since Barry Sanders. It’s also no disrespect to Travis Hunter who was both an outstanding receiver and an outstanding cornerback for Colorado. Those two players dominated the Heisman conversation all season for good reason. When I say Cam Skattebo was the best football player of this past season, I mean I would rather have a team of eleven Cam Skattebos than a team of eleven Travis Hunters or a team of eleven Ashton Jeantys.
Just check out what Skattebo did against Texas. Against one of the best defensive lines in the country, Skattebo had 30 carries for 143 yards and 2 touchdowns. That alone would have been an impressive day. But what Skattebo did in the fourth quarter wasn’t just impressive, it was the stuff of legends.
With Arizona State trailing 24-8 with less than 7 minutes to play in the fourth quarter, Skattebo took a pitch for what should have been ASU’s version of the “Philly Special”, in which he was supposed to throw it back to quarterback Sam Leavitt in the trick play made famous by Nick Foles and the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl. Yet Leavitt told Skattebo before the play that he was hindered by a bum ankle and wasn’t sure he should be the targeted receiver. So Skattebo improvised on the fly and threw a 42-yard touchdown to Malik McClain. After the ensuing two-point conversion, the Sun Devils had cut the deficit to 24-16.
After an Arizona State interception two plays later, the Sun Devils improbably had the ball on their own 17-yard line with a chance to tie the game if they could figure out a way to mount another scoring drive. So, of course they started the play off with a long pass to Skattebo who hauled it in for a 62-yard reception and drew a facemask penalty as he had his helmet ripped off in the process. Two plays later, Skattebo scored a touchdown and then he tied the game with another run for a two-point conversion.
A lot of the narrative about the final minutes of this game has focused on the egregious failure of the referees to penalize Texas for an obvious targeting penalty. I have mixed feelings about targeting penalties in general and I’m usually all for referees keep their flags in their pocket and let the players decide a close game, but this was such an obvious example of targeting that rules experts for other networks felt compelled to weigh in with public statements after the game explaining why they thought it was an obvious example of targeting. A correct call there would have given ASU the ball in Texas territory with a minute to work with.
Even still, Arizona State had a chance to win the game in overtime where the Sun Devils scored first and then had Texas dead to rights on a 4th-and-13, only for much maligned Longhorns quarterback Quinn Ewers to make the play of his life with a 28-yard touchdown pass to Matthew Golden.
If Texas is able to go on and win the national title, that play will be remembered by Texas fans forever. But I will remember something else about that play. Seconds before the ball was snapped, the ESPN cameras found former ASU quarterback Jake Plummer on the sideline.
A lot of schools have their version of Jake Plummer, the alum who takes on an outsized role in the history of the school. The alum who the cameras love to find in a big game. For Florida, it’s Tim Tebow. For Miami, it’s Michael Irvin. For Auburn, it’s Bo Jackson. For Michigan, it’s Desmond Howard. For Oregon, it’s Joey Harrington. For Texas, it’s Matthew McConaughey (kind of).
What was unique about Plummer is that Arizona State’s history as a football power is pretty much limited to him. In 1996, he led the Sun Devils to an 11-0 regular season, then scored the go-ahead touchdown in the Rose Bowl against Ohio State, only for the Buckeyes to drive back down the field for a score of their own.
Plummer was minutes away from delivering Arizona State the most improbable of national championships and I can only imagine how that loss has haunted him. So, there was Plummer on the sideline, filled with nervous anticipation and a bit of a smile creeping across his face, with his alma mater one play away from a monumental win over a college football superpower, about to extend an incredible dream season...I hope Texas fans don’t mind, but I’m going to pause my memory of this game right there.
Notre Dame 23 Georgia 10
There are two major storylines to note in this one. First, let’s celebrate Notre Dame. Notre Dame obviously holds a treasured place in the history of the sport, but it had been a looong time since the Fighting Irish had won a game of this magnitude. Notre Dame was on a 10-game losing streak in “major” bowl games (Cotton, Fiesta, Orange, Peach, Rose, Sugar). You’d have to go all the way back to 1993 to find the last time Notre Dame won a game of this magnitude.
The last time Notre Dame was in a major bowl was in the 2022 Fiesta Bowl when they blew a 28-7 lead to Oklahoma State and lost 37-35. That was an improvement over previous years as the Irish have been flat out embarrassed in most of these big games. There was a 32-point loss to Oregon State during the Bob Davie era, a 27-point loss to LSU during the Charlie Weis era, and a 28-point loss to Alabama in the national title game during the Brian Kelly era. They never made a major bowl game during the Tyrone Willingham era, but they managed to lose a Gator Bowl to NC State by 22 points so let’s throw them in here too.
I don’t say all this to dredge up bad memories for Notre Dame fans. I say all of this to say that when Brian Kelly made the somewhat shocking decision to leave Notre Dame for LSU, he did so because he believed Notre Dame had reached its ceiling and that he needed to move on to an SEC power in order to properly compete for a national championship. Three years later, Brian Kelly had LSU playing Baylor in the Texas Bowl while Notre Dame was beating the SEC Champs in a playoff game.
Granted, it wasn’t the prettiest of victories. Notre Dame had less than 100 passing yards and committed 10 penalties. They also caught a break by playing a Georgia team who was forced to give backup quarterback Gunner Stockton his first career start and caught a few more breaks when Georgia’s receivers dropped some of the best passes that Stockton threw. When one of Georgia’s receivers actually hauled in a long pass, a player on Georgia’s sideline (who wasn’t even wearing pads) accidentally collided with a referee and the Bulldogs got flagged for sideline interference. So yeah, it was an ugly win. That’s all well and good but this is still the type of game that pretty much every Notre Dame of the last 30 years would have found a way to lose.
Yet this year, it’s the SEC who is finding a way to lose games with increasing frequency. After the conference was up in arms about the only getting three playoff teams, both Georgia and Tennessee fell flat in their playoff openers and several other SEC teams struggled in their bowl games. Alabama lost to Michigan (the Wolverines joined Notre Dame in beating an SEC power without throwing for 100 yards), South Carolina lost to Illinois, Texas A&M lost to USC, and Oklahoma lost to Navy (yet another game in which a team beat an SEC team with less than 100 passing yards).
It’s probably too early to form a working hypothesis, but is it possible that the combination of NIL compensation and the transfer portal have made it harder for the SEC powers to hoard talented players? It sure seems logical that the four and five-star recruits that used to be second and third stringers at places like Alabama and Georgia are now being much more proactive in seeking out opportunities to get on the field elsewhere. If Texas goes down to Ohio State in the semis, we’d be looking at a second consecutive season without an SEC team in the national championship.
Penn State 31 Boise State 14
Boise State is America’s darling, and Ashton Jeanty is America’s favorite player, so it was a bummer to see the Broncos fall in an early 14-0 hole and not be able to dig their way out of it. Boise had more first downs than Penn State (24-21) and even with Ashton Jeanty “held” to 126 yards of a total offense, Boise still outgained Penn State 412-387. If you showed me those two stats before the game, I would have thought Boise had a really good chance at an upset. What crushed Boise’s hopes was a staggering array of self-inflicted wounds. They turned the ball over four times, missed two field goals, failed to convert a 4th down, and committed 13 penalties, a few of which were absolute backbreakers. That all sounds pretty catastrophic, yet this was still a 17-14 game midway through the third quarter.
If you want to talk about a real catastrophe, you’d have to look at how the number one team in the nation performed in Pasadena.
Ohio State 41 Oregon 21
Ok, deep breath here. There’s no sugarcoating it. This one was awful. A 41-21 score doesn’t look great, but this was much worse than the final score indicated. The Ducks fell behind 34-0 before halftime and somehow even that undersells how badly they played. Their defensive players were so out of position on a couple touchdowns that it appeared they had never played football before. Their offense was unable to mount any meaningful challenge in response. It was brutal to watch if you were a Duck fan and laughable if you were a Duck hater.
I’m still incredibly high on Dan Lanning as Oregon’s coach and the future is very bright, but it is strange how the Ducks have been shell-shocked in season-ending rematches two years in a row. Last year they started off the Pac-12 Championship game facing a 20-3 deficit against Washington, then followed that up with an even worse start in this game. It’s a small sample size and can’t be considered a pattern yet, but still worth noting.
The Ducks didn’t lay down in either of those games, they kept fighting, so that is something. There was a good sixty seconds in the third quarter when the Ducks seemed to have some real momentum. They cut the deficit to 34-15 with back-to-back scores, then forced a three-and-out to get the ball back, only for Dillon Gabriel to get sacked on consecutive plays.
The consensus in the college football world is that this is the version of Ohio State everyone was expecting in the offseason when they assembled what was widely believed to be the best roster in America. They didn’t resemble that kind of juggernaut throughout the regular season but something about their season-ending loss to Michigan seems to have awakened the giant. They’re pretty clearly the title favorite now, which is funny because in any other year this team would have been disqualified from title contention after that loss to the Wolverines. They join a semifinal group with Texas (two losses to Georgia, including SEC Championship), and Penn State (Big Ten Championship loss to Oregon) as three schools all ended the regular season with a loss, but have taken advantage of the opportunity for new life.
It’s a great win for the Buckeyes and I’m happy for Chip Kelly, but I still need to take a moment to process this a bit more on the Oregon side of things. It’s hard to know which part of this game to be most befuddled by.
On the defensive side. Dan Lanning has undoubtedly brought a more defensive identity to Oregon. The last two seasons were their best back-to-back seasons in school history they finished in the top 20 nationally for scoring defense both years. They’ve been particularly good against the pass this year, surrendering just 185 passing yards per game. Yet they’ve also been pretty consistently shredded by playoff-caliber offenses during the last two seasons, revealing that there is still another level for them to reach on that side of the ball.
Offensively, their performance was just as jarring. After performing exceptionally well in their first meeting against Ohio State and their matchup with Penn State (giving up one sack combined in two games), the veteran offensive line looked completely overwhelmed in this matchup, giving up 8 sacks and failing to open any rushing lanes. Running back Jordan James left with a concussion, but he had just 14 yards on 7 carries before leaving. In his absence, Noah Whittington and Jayden Limar had just 7 yards on 8 carries. In their first meeting with Ohio State, Oregon somehow ran for 155 yards at five yards per carry against this same defensive front.
Recognizing this was an embarrassing loss on a huge stage, let’s wrap things up with a little perspective. When Dan Lanning got hired as a young first-time coach who had served as a defensive coordinator for a national champion, I thought the two best comps were Kirby Smart at Georgia and Bob Stoops at Oklahoma. Both guys became first-time coaches at top tier schools after winning national titles as defense coordinators (Kirby for Saban’s Alabama and Stoops for Spurrier’s Florida).
Kirby currently has an .847 winning percentage through nine seasons. Stoops had a .799 winning percentage during his two-decade tenure at Oklahoma. With a 35-6 record in three seasons, Lanning is at .854. The only active coach with a better mark at his current school is the guy he just lost to, Ohio State’s Ryan Day, at .872. As bad as this loss was, Lanning still has to be considered one of the best coaches in America.
Should this blowout change how we feel about Lanning’s coaching acumen? I don’t think so. In fact, he’s in some pretty good company. Here are a few of my favorite blowout losses for undefeated teams with great coaches:
1995 Florida (Steve Spurrier): Entered the Fiesta Bowl undefeated and playing for a national title, lost to Nebraska 62-24. The narrative coming out of this one was that Steve Spurrier would never win the big one.
1996 Florida State (Bobby Bowden): Entered the Sugar Bowl undefeated and playing for a national title against a team they had already beaten, lost to Florida 52-20. This is the closest comp to what just happened at Oregon as the national media thought it was unfair for the Seminoles to have to beat Florida again and the rematch was decided by a key change in strategy as Steve Spurrier moved Danny Wuerffel exclusively to the shotgun formation in an effort to mitigate Florida State’s pass rush and the Gators’ ultra-talented “fun n’ gun” offense diced up the Seminoles’ secondary.
2004 Oklahoma (Bob Stoops): Entered the national championship game undefeated, lost to USC 55-19. The previous year, Oklahoma entered the Big 12 Championship undefeated and lost 35-7 to Kansas State.
2006 Ohio State (Jim Tressel): Entered the national championship game undefeated, lost to Florida 41-14. Ohio State made the title game again the next year and got smoked by LSU.
2018 Alabama (Nick Saban): Entered the national championship game undefeated, lost to Clemson 44-16. (If I were a Husky fan or a Beaver fan, I’d troll Oregon fans by pointing out that current Oregon defensive coordinator Tosh Lupoi was Alabama’s DC in this game, but I’m not going to do their homework for them.)
2020 Ohio State (Ryan Day): Entered the 2020 national title game undefeated, lost to Alabama 52-24. This was the weird COVID year, so Ohio State only played half a season, but they beat Clemson by 21 in the semis and seemed like a legit title contender going into this game.
These are six very specific examples off the top of my head of undefeated teams with great coaches losing bowl games with national title expectations. If I tweaked the parameters slightly, I could have included Urban Meyer’s Ohio State losing to Clemson 31-0 in a CFP semifinal, or Dabo Swinney’s Clemson losing an Orange Bowl to West Virginia 70-33, or Mack Brown’s Texas teams losing the Red River Rivalry to Oklahoma by scores of 63-14 and 65-13, or Jim Harbaugh’s Michigan teams losing to Ohio State 62-39 one year and 56-27 the next year. For goodness sakes, I pointed to three examples for Ohio State alone and out of respect I didn’t even mention their 55-24 loss to Iowa in 2017 or their 49-20 loss the next year to Purdue, both of which torpedoed the hopes of legit national title contenders.
The point is, these sorts of things happen quite often in a sport played by 18-to-22-year-olds, and even great teams led by great coaches can have games where it just goes off the rails.
I’m not totally shocked that this Oregon team wasn’t able to win a rematch against one of the best teams in America. After all, this is the same team that struggled to put away Idaho in their season opener and the same team that was lucky to survive against Wisconsin in mid-November. This Oregon team never really struck me as a national title team through much of the season, but I started to think they might be able to take advantage of a quirky playoff field with no great SEC team and no superhuman quarterback waiting in the wings. Because of that, this feels like a missed opportunity of sorts. Yet this is also the team that won the Big Ten Conference with a 13-0 start to the season and rooting for them was an incredibly fun way to spend 2024. This was one of the five best seasons in school history, and I enjoyed it thoroughly.
On a personal note…
I launched Mark’s Moments around this date six years ago and it’s been a lot of fun to share my writing with all of you faithful readers. A couple years ago, I made the move to Substack and created a paid subscription option. In doing that, I committed to average 50 posts per year and I believe that I have greatly exceeded that goal. But writing, especially the long-winded way that I choose to do it, takes a lot of time (usually late at night or very early in the morning) and I don’t have quite the same margins in my life that I did when I first started this project.
While it’s been nice to get a little money on the side, I will be deactivating all paid subscriptions and readers will be refunded whatever they are owed for the remainder of their subscription. (The vast majority of subscribers are set to automatically renew in the next couple days so those refunds will likely be minimal).
I plan to keep this page for now as a free site and I may choose to keep publishing on a more sporadic basis. There’s still two rounds of a college football playoff, followed by the NFL playoffs, followed by March Madness…so yeah, I may have more to say. Time will tell.