After the TCU-Michigan and Ohio State-Georgia contests ended Saturday night, college football fans on social media called it the best day in the history of the College Football Playoff.
“BEST COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF SEMIFINALS EVER!!!” tweeted former Washington NFL quarterback Robert Griffin III — one of many on Twitter to make that declaration.
Both semifinal matchups were high-scoring, one-score affairs that came down to the very end. That’s a rarity for the College Football Playoff semifinals.
In 2014, the NCAA instituted the College Football Playoff — a four-team tournament to decide the national champion — and most assumed it would be far better than the previous BCS system that partially used a computer to decide who would play in a single title game.
Well, for the first eight years of the new system, it didn’t play out how most thought. Before Saturday, just three of the 16 semifinal matchups between 2014 and 2021 were decided by one score. That makes Georgia’s 42-41 comeback win over Ohio State and TCU’s 51-45 upset victory over Michigan abnormal for the College Football Playoff.
“This has been the best college football playoff semifinal round that the committee could have imagined,” Fox broadcaster John Fanta tweeted. “Epic would be an understatement. What a massive day for the sport. Who wouldn’t want expansion after watching these two classics! Outstanding.”
TCU will face Georgia in the championship on Jan. 9.
• Jacob Calvin Meyer can be reached at jmeyer@washingtontimes.com.
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