Well, that was fun, wasn’t it?
Check that. The quarterfinals of the College Football Playoff weren’t fun for Alabama or Texas Tech, neither of whom scored touchdowns. But for plenty of others, the quarterfinals were indeed theater, ending with the best game of all in the Sugar Bowl.
We now have semifinal matchups between Oregon and Indiana, and Ole Miss and Miami. Sure. Just as we all predicted, right? Those teams have a combined 1 national title in the 21st century, and it was 2001 Miami. There’ll be new blood in this field of 4.
But before we spin it ahead, let’s look back at a fascinating quarterfinal round:
Ole Miss taking down Georgia without Lane Kiffin is the stuff of legend
Yes, Kiffin built that roster and he hired that coaching staff. But somewhere in Baton Rouge, Lane Kiffin watched his ex-team deliver a performance for the ages in the Sugar Bowl. That included Trinidad Chambliss playing out of his mind. The 3-play sequence he made to fuel Ole Miss late will be talked about in the Magnolia State for a long time, as will the pass to De’Zhaun Stribling to set up the game-winning field goal for Lucas Carneiro.
That doesn’t happen unless Charlie Weis Jr. calls a masterful game, which he did. Unlike the regular-season matchup in Athens when Ole Miss collapsed in the 4th quarter — Chambliss was 1-for-10 for 1 yard in the 4th quarter the first time — Georgia‘s defense couldn’t find answers late. Even after Kewan Lacy’s fumble resulted in a Georgia scoop-and-score, Ole Miss continued to feed its workhorse back. It was a resilient, confident performance for a group that looked like it was playing with house money.
Pete Golding deserves all the praise for what he accomplished. Taking down that Georgia squad was the type of thing that didn’t seem possible when the Playoff bracket was revealed. He avenged the lone regular-season loss and took the SEC Championship winner out of the field. Who knows that happens to Ole Miss beyond this 2025 team, but that can’t be forgotten.
Ole Miss is the last SEC team standing. Not Georgia, not Alabama … Kiffin-less Ole Miss. Who would’ve thunk?
It’s Indiana’s world, and we’re all just living in it
OK, it’s not truly Indiana’s world until it wins a national championship, but mercy. That was a beatdown. It was Alabama’s worst loss of any kind in the 21st century, and it was Alabama’s most lopsided postseason loss ever. It didn’t even feel like Ty Simpson’s rib injury would’ve changed that result. Of course, the play in which that happened was a fumble forced by Indiana that felt like the story of the day. IU was in total control.
It didn’t matter that to that point, teams with a bye in the 12-team Playoff era were 0-6 having been outscored 45-3 in the first quarter. The only rust that IU showed was allowing 2 sacks of Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza on the first possession.
For those who expected Indiana to fade upon arrival in its second-ever trip to the Rose Bowl, Thursday’s developments were stunning. For those who watched how Indiana got to 13-0 and why Alabama entered the quarterfinal round as a flawed team, the 2025 context was less stunning.
Mind you, Alabama entered the quarterfinal round as healthy as it had been all season. It still lost the rushing edge 215-23. The Tide didn’t hit 100 total yards until Austin Mack came in for Simpson in the middle of the third quarter. It was the type of game that reminded us that Indiana wasn’t just a fun story. It earned that 1-seed by beating Oregon in Eugene and by outlasting Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship.
Now the question is obvious — should Indiana be the overwhelming favorite to win it all? Ohio State held that title entering the quarterfinals, so naturally, IU stepped into the top spot as the new Vegas favorite at +150 (via BetMGM). A rematch against Oregon and that dominant defense will be no small feat, but it’s hard not to be bullish on IU’s chances after it handed Alabama its most lopsided loss of the 21st century.
Speaking of Alabama …
We were right to say that Alabama was flawed
Apologies for repeating myself here. It needs to be said one more time. Alabama ran into a buzzsaw. Period. In a different era of Alabama football, it could’ve perhaps handled the buzzsaw and pulled out a gritty win. This isn’t that era, though. This is the era that just produced its worst rushing offense since 1955, it had an inconsistent offensive line and it had a good, but not great, run defense.
Add it all up and you got what you got on Saturday. It didn’t matter that Alabama was as healthy as it had been all year. It still had too low of a floor to win a national title by beating 4 top-10 teams in a row.
Thursday didn’t necessarily mean that Alabama was suddenly unworthy of making the Playoff, or that Kalen DeBoer‘s future was in jeopardy. If that was the takeaway by some, it should’ve been met with eyerolls. What Thursday meant was the final piece of evidence that Alabama wasn’t in a championship tier in 2025. It was out-manned in every way. That means some tough decisions need to be made. The transfer portal window can be Alabama’s friend, as it’s been in the first 2 years under DeBoer.
Should Alabama spend big at running back? What’s the quarterback room going to look like? Are there interior linemen who can help fix the ground game?
All of those questions will be answered. A more pressing question Alabama faces is how did things get that lopsided with that much at stake? It was the third time this year that Alabama lost a game that didn’t feel particularly close. That’s happening too often under DeBoer. His job in Year 3 — the first time that he’s had a Year 3 as an FBS head coach — is to address that and prevent Rose Bowl-like flashbacks in 2026.
Miami and Oregon have championship-level defenses
My goodness. Talk about defensive statements.
Miami delivered the biggest upset (9.5-point underdogs) in Playoff history thanks to Rueben Bain and that vastly improved unit. All it did was pitch a first-half shutout and hold longtime No. 1 Ohio State to a pair of second-half scoring drives. Even on a night in which Jeremiah Smith looked like the best player on the planet, Miami dominated the Ohio State offensive line and made Julian Sayin uncomfortable all game.
The Canes have won 2 Playoff games by allowing a total of 17 points to teams who started 11-0 with late-season Heisman Trophy candidates. Don’t dismiss that significance. A year removed from having a defense that prevented the Hurricanes from getting into the Playoff, it’s now the driving force to a semifinal berth.
As for Oregon, um, do you think Dan Lanning had his team slightly motivated after that second-half performance against James Madison? Like, do you think he had his entire team convinced that it actually lost and it only got to play Texas Tech because of some sort of technicality? I’d believe it. Oregon was everywhere. It forced 4 turnovers and pitched a shutout against the No. 2 scoring offense in FBS. True freshman Brandon Finney Jr. picked off 2 passes, one of which was in the end zone.
Lanning said that challenged his team to “go get their pound of flesh.” It’s safe to say that happened. Now the question becomes whether Oregon can ride that same momentum into a rematch against Indiana. Lord knows that Lanning will be able to sell his team the revenge angle, but will the offense move the ball better against the Hoosiers this time around? Time will tell.
The quarterfinals showed that both Miami and Oregon are very much capable of winning it all when their defenses play at that level.
There’s an obvious fix for the teams with byes and their 1-7 record
It’s exactly what Lanning said earlier in the week. Stick these quarterfinal games on campus. Period. Home games are guaranteed for the top-4 seeds.
That increases the reward for one of those top-4 seeds and still puts emphasis on the regular season. That’s what the people want, right? The bowls with financial stake who don’t want to suddenly be told they don’t have an annual Playoff game would push back, but if that’s the only thing holding this up, that’s not a good enough reason. It was ridiculous that Texas Tech and Oregon were playing in Miami, and the secondary ticket market reflected that.
If there’s one thing that this quarterfinal hopefully yielded, perhaps that’s it.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
