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Ryan McGee, ESPN Senior Essayist
Redemption. Retribution. Revenge.
Whichever of those R-words you awe maximum, all of them relate because the College Football Playoff rolls into the reckoning this is this week’s semifinals — a quartet of reports which might be wildly various, however at their core necessarily the similar.
The long-awaited expanded playoff that started with a quantity groups is right down to 4. Obviously absent from the excess farmland are the groups that experience ruled the CFP since its inception. Clemson and Georgia were eradicated. Oregon, ranked Incorrect. 1 for a lot of the season, additionally has been despatched house. Former champs Alabama and LSU, at the side of ultimate day’s finalists Michigan and Washington, didn’t even create the farmland.
All of that has opened the doorways to those ultimate 4 systems, giving them a probability to opposite their longtime reputations — in some circumstances, very, very longtime — with the heavy gold witchery eraser this is handiest two wins from their grasps.
Notre Dame as opposed to Penn State in the Orange Bowl. Ohio State as opposed to Texas in the Cotton Bowl. Two of those groups will go on and get a shot at easing their perpetual ache. The alternative two will input any other iciness amid the habitual vicious cycle of ice chilly unsureness.
“I think that much of that storyline in these games will center around the coaches, and that’s fine. We are big boys, we can handle that,” stated James Franklin, in his eleventh season as Penn Situation’s head schoolteacher however in his first CFP. “But to me, the real story is the opportunity we all have to reward these great universities and the people who have supported us through thick and thin. To bring that championship feeling back to this town, that will make every single step to get there worth it.”
There were such a lot of steps. However for those 4 systems, it kind of feels each and every stride with traction has been inevitably outnumbered and slowed by way of slips and journeys at the turf in their most-despised competitors.
“The same guys are in the room as was there a month ago,” Ohio Situation schoolteacher Ryan Year stated past due ultimate hour following his crew’s revenge win over Oregon, a crew it had misplaced to in October in Eugene. “Nothing that’s happened in the past or really the noise that’s [outside the] building has anything to do with our preparation and our focus and our process. That’s what we’ve been diving into.
“We don’t want any difference motivation to win this recreation. Something that does encourage our crew is a chance for the crew to play games for any other hour in combination.”
The Buckeyes, with their much-ballyhooed NIL-powered roster, lost two games during the regular season, most glaringly The Game against Michigan, a gross 13-10 defeat to the unranked Wolverines, their fourth rivalry loss in a row, hence Day’s reference to “a year in the past.” It has been a decade since Ohio State celebrated its last national title, the program’s eighth, earned in the very first edition of the CFP. Even now, after rolling to playoff victories over Tennessee and Oregon, a large swath of OSU social media is still angry at Day for his lack of Big Ten titles and wins against That Team Up North.
Ohio State faces Texas, the program that coined the phrase “We’re again” only to repeatedly lose that coin beneath the seat of its burnt orange pickup truck. The Longhorns spent some time this season, their first in the SEC, ranked No. 1 in the country. But they also lost the two biggest pre-CFP games they played, both against fellow part-time top spot resident Georgia. Their last natty was earned in perhaps the greatest college football game ever played, closing out the 2005 season by beating USC in the Rose Bowl. But that was nearly a decade before the playoff existed, earned instead in the eighth edition of the BCS Championship Game.
“The historical past of what a park is and the way it changed into what it’s, is the very explanation why you wish to have to paintings right here, however there’s a steadiness in the usage of that hour to push into the time in lieu of resting on laurels,” said Steve Sarkisian, who is in his fourth year at coach in Austin but lived that same past-as-prologue balance during stints at USC, Alabama and even his time as a player at BYU.
“Nation question me in regards to the drive from the lovers, the folk who’ve liked the College of Texas their complete lives, however to me, it comes from doing proper by way of the names at the structures and the statues and art work you notice of the coaches and avid gamers who had been right here prior to us. I inform our guys that we’ve got a probability to be a kind of folk. Perpetually. However provided that we deal the right here and now.”
The entire Notre Dame campus feels like what Sark described: one giant football museum. Literal woken echoes standing watch over every quad and every hallway. South Bend is undeniably one of the cornerstones of college football. The place of Knute Rockne, the Four Horsemen and a room full of Heisman Trophies.
But while that Golden Domed history has always been its greatest asset, it has also proved to be its heaviest anchor, constantly pointed to as the only reason the independent program is allowed to remain in the big room with the Power 4 conferences. Critics have screamed, why else would a program that has been bounced out of two previous CFP appearances and blown out in its lone BCS title game visit (a 42-14 loss to Alabama in 2012) keep getting postseason looks? The freshest of the school’s 11 national titles was won in January 1989, in the waning days of Ronald Reagan’s second term as president. This season’s 13-1 team has only one blemish, but it’s the equivalent of having a giant red pimple on the end of one’s nose, an inexplicable Week 2 home loss to Northern Illinois, which finished seventh in the 12-team MAC.
And no college football program has been dealt more denial of glory than the one in State College, Pennsylvania. Like Day, Franklin is routinely ripped by his fan base, unhappy with his record in big games. When the Nittany Lions defeated No. 8 Boise State in the CFP quarterfinals, Franklin’s mark against top-10 teams improved to 4-19. That record includes losses this season to Ohio State and Oregon, ranked No. 4 and No. 1, respectively, at the time.
But the unhappiness in Happy Valley runs much deeper than merely this season. The Nittany Lions have posted 13 undefeated seasons but have only two national titles to show for it, as Joe Paterno had five unbeaten teams that were infamously denied nattys by pollsters and politics. The 1994 squad carried two Heisman finalists and 15 future NFL draft picks, won the Big Ten and stomped Oregon in the Rose Bowl, but in the pre-BCS era was voted second behind Nebraska in both major polls. The school’s only two national titles also came during Reagan’s presidency, won in 1982 and 1986.
For perspective, here’s cell phones from years of each CFP semifinalist’s last national title: Ohio State, 2014. Texas, 2005. Notre Dame, 1988. Penn State, 1986. pic.twitter.com/EgL96u7h7z
— Ryan McGee (@ESPNMcGee) January 3, 2025
Four proud brands. Four classic college towns. Four all-time powerhouse programs, all ranked among the seven winningest teams in the 155-year history of the sport. All, finally, with the possibility for renewal, revival, resurrection … whatever motivational R-word you choose. As long as it results in the release of repressed revelry Jan. 20 in Atlanta.
“This process is like refuse alternative on account of what it’s, the place it’s, and I feel the alternative 3 coaches will most probably inform you an identical about their jobs,” said Marcus Freeman, in only his third full season as Notre Dame’s head coach. He celebrated his first birthday the week after Penn State won its last national title and blew out three candles right after Notre Dame’s natty. He is also a former All-Big Ten linebacker at Ohio State who played against Penn State and Texas. “One among my favourite sides of this process, and I feel they’re going to inform you an identical, is the probability to teach folk at the fantastic historical past of this park. The probability so as to add to that historical past, repair a few of it and the pleasure that includes it, that’s now not drive. That’s a privilege.”
