For those who dozed through it, or flipped to more compelling fare in the NFL, here’s a brief recap of the rollout of the much-anticipated College Football Playoff last weekend.

Average final score: Winners 36, Losers 17.

In four games, not a single one was closer than a 10-point margin, and even that one felt worse. In 240 minutes of action spread across those four games, there was a grand total of one lead change.

This bold, new experiment was supposed to bring more programs from more parts of the country into the loop of a largely regional sport that had been dominated by about a half-dozen teams for the last decade.

Instead, it will take another six days to find out if “more” really means more, or if more just means a few weeks of what we just saw before arriving at what we had before — a group of four contenders battling it out for a title that only they had any realistic chance to win.

One part that did feel like a success was that the stands were full in all four stadiums — at Texas, Notre Dame, Penn State and Ohio State.

“I think college football got this one right,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said after the Longhorns beat Clemson 38-24 in front of a packed house in what turned out to be the weekend’s most compelling game. “As much as we critique some of the things that are happening in our game right now, this idea of a home playoff game with this 12-team format, this was pretty special.”

The TV ratings proved views were interested. Each of the four games averaged 10.6 million viewers. That’s more than the four the non-CFP New Year’s bowls after the 2023 season averaged (8.14 million), and also topped the average for this year’s four major conference championship games (10 million).

Could the quarterfinals bring more of the same?

The quarterfinals come over the New Year’s holiday, where we’ll get more clarity not only about who might win the title, but whether the CFP as it is structured is as good as it can be.

Up Next

Fiesta Bowl, No. 6 Penn State vs. No. 3 Boise State, 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, ESPN: The rules called for the four highest-ranked conference champions to receive first-round byes, and so you get this. Penn State is the lower seed but is a 10½-point favorite over the Mountain West Conference champions. Boise State has the nation’s leading rusher in Ashton Jeanty. Penn State is probably bigger and faster at every other position.

Peach Bowl, No. 5 Texas vs. No. 4 Arizona State, noon, ESPN: See above for thoughts about byes, potential mismatches and pairings that might have made more sense had they come earlier. Texas is a 13½-point favorite, but the Sun Devils of the Big 12 are the closest thing this tournament has to a Cinderella in win-or-you’re-done territory since Nov. 2 with a pair of entertaining players in quarterback Sam Leavitt and running back Cam Skattebo.

Rose Bowl, No. 8 Ohio State vs. No. 1 Oregon, 4 p.m. Wednesday, ESPN: Had the rule-makers chosen to reseed the bracket after the first round to give Oregon a game against the highest-seeded team left, this would have been the matchup, anyway. But do we really want a rematch of possibly the best game in college football this season — Oregon’s 32-31 win over Ohio State in October — in the quarterfinals?

Sugar Bowl, No. 7 Notre Dame at No. 2 Georgia, 7:45 p.m. Wednesday, ESPN: Bulldogs quarterback Carson Beck had season-ending elbow surgery on Monday and will be replaced by redshirt sophomore Gunnar Stockton. The selection committee was supposed to consider injuries in its rankings but probably didn’t have enough information to make an informed decision because Beck was hurt in the SEC championship game. Long ago, in a galaxy far away, Georgia beat Notre Dame in the 1981 Sugar Bowl to capture its second national title.

Portal awkwardness

The transfer portal will close on Saturday, meaning the steady trickle of departures from teams with title hopes will not infiltrate the headlines as we head into football’s elite eight. But this entire setup is awkward.

Arizona State lost 12 players to the portal after it opened on Dec. 9. Tennessee lost 11. The highest-profile departure was Penn State backup quarterback Beau Pribula. Whether these players would have been on the field much (they wouldn’t, which is probably why some left) almost seems beside the point.

For decades, playing to win a championship was thought to be the north star for any elite athlete. Or so we thought. Now, there is a lot of money available, and it’s also not hard to blame a player for trying to max out his earning potential in the new world of college football endorsements.

“I think everybody that follows the sport understands that it’s a unique time of year,” Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said. “I’m not in charge of that. Do I think they need to find a way to go through all the processes that they have right now, or things that are in the game but find a better calendar for it? Yeah, I think that would be best for the game for sure.”

Deion Factor

There are another 25 bowl games remaining that will have no implication on the national title. Maybe the best one is set for Saturday, when Heisman winner Travis Hunter and Colorado face BYU in the Alamo Bowl.

There’s nothing particularly big on the line here, but there is a message being sent.

Colorado has two first-round draft picks on the roster in Hunter and the coach’s son, quarterback Shedeur Sanders. Normally, they wouldn’t find themselves anywhere near this game, for fear an injury could derail their pro prospects.

But they will play. Coach Deion Sanders has shouldered his share of criticism for being the face of a largely transactional, money-driven NIL era. But his ability to steer his best two players to find meaning in a game with no stakes is as old-school as it gets, and the exact opposite of the transfer portal mess.

“It’s not just a bowl game where we’re going to go be merry and have a Merry Christmas and exchange gifts and do all of that,” the coach explained. “No, we want to go there and play Buff football.”

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