And now, 16 thoughts following the 16th semifinal in College Football Playoff history.
1. Thanks, everybody, for coming out once again to America’s saddest, most anticlimactic New Year’s Eve party. While we make a point of inviting guests from all over the country, only the ones from the South get to go home happy.
2. College football seasons rarely fail to disappoint, but college football postseasons rarely fail to let us down.
Sure, the gods smile on us once in a blue moon with a Vince Young over USC Rose Bowl, a Boise State-Oklahoma Fiesta Bowl, Watson-to-Renfrow on second-and-26. But why must they make us sit through so many more 27-6 and 34-11-type snoozers? And this year, they’ve thrown in the added twist of a national championship rematch between two teams that played barely a month earlier — and that game was a blowout.
Though it probably could not have been avoided.
3. Initially, even I tried to talk myself into Cincinnati and/or Michigan having a shot in their respective semifinal matchups against SEC foes. Alabama, after all, was not exactly vintage Alabama for most of the season, and Georgia had just laid a colossal egg in the conference championship game. But as the games got closer, I kept coming back to the fact that Alabama and Georgia are elite SEC programs that sign top-three recruiting classes year after year. Cincinnati and Michigan are, and do, not. I ultimately picked both SEC teams to win by double digits — and still undershot the final scores by a combined 21 points.
4. Alabama and Georgia will meet again on Jan. 10 in Indianapolis because they were the two best teams in the country this season, regardless of conference.
