A college football changing of the guard arrived all at once, plus more CFP quarterfinal takeaways
SOURCE:The Athletic|BY:Stewart Mandel
Indiana's and Ole Miss's win over the old powers is a sign of a new era in college football.
And now, 16 Final Thoughts from a riveting set of College Football Playoff quarterfinals. Happy New Year, indeed.
1. Indiana coach Curt Cignetti may spend three straight hours stone-faced on the sideline, but he usually turns the dry humor back on come his postgame interviews after yet another dominating victory. When ESPN’s Kris Budden asked him after Thursday’s Rose Bowl why “the moment (wasn’t) too big” for the Hoosiers, he replied nonchalantly, “Well, why should it be too big? Because our name is Indiana?”
It was college football’s ultimate “changing of the guard” moment.
And then four hours later, Ole Miss knocked off Georgia.
2. College football is a fundamentally different sport today than it was just two years ago, when it was still largely the same closed-off country club for the nation’s traditional programs. Case in point, the 2025 semifinals feature two schools, Indiana and Oregon, that have never won a national championship; a third, Ole Miss, that last won one in the early ’60s; and Miami, making its return after getting kicked out of the club 20 years ago.
Who between them eliminated three of the four most recent national champions, Ohio State, Georgia and Alabama, in the quarterfinals
How fun is this?
3. Who would have guessed the same Ole Miss team whose coach ditched them on the eve of the Playoff would be the last SEC team standing in the Playoff? Apparently not Lane Kiffin.
The guy left for LSU to win a national championship, and now his old team might beat him to it.
4. Rebels quarterback Trinidad Chambliss had a performance for the ages Thursday night in New Orleans, leading his sixth-seeded team to a 39-34 Sugar Bowl upset of No. 3 Georgia in one of the most thrilling games of the CFP era. The Ferris State transfer kept springing away from what looked like a sure sack to find a receiver downfield, helping his team build a 34-24 lead. And then when Georgia came back to tie it with less than a minute left, he hit De’Zhaun Stribling for a 40-yard gain to set up Lucas Carneiro’s game-winning 47-yard field goal.
But the Ole Miss defense deserves a lot of credit, too. The game turned when the Rebels, down 21-19, held the Dawgs to a field goal. Chambliss caught fire shortly after, and Suntarine Perkins’ fourth-and-2 sack gave Chambliss short field to go up 10. Most importantly, after two pass interference penalties gave the Dawgs a first-and-goal with the chance to reclaim the lead, Ole Miss instead held them to a game-tying field goal. Chambliss did the rest.
Trinidad Chambliss threw two touchdowns and completed 30 of his 46 passes in the win over Georgia. (Chris Graythen / Getty Images)
5. So now let’s take a moment to comprehend just how unusual it is what Ole Miss is doing. Its head coach left for a conference rival the day after the Rebels’ last regular-season game. Defensive coordinator Pete Golding suddenly became the new head coach, debuting in the CFP. Five assistants, including OC Charlie Weis Jr., have already begun working for Kiffin at LSU but will presumably be sticking around for at least another week until next Thursday’s Fiesta Bowl date with Miami — right as the transfer portal officially opens this Friday.
It speaks to just how resilient college players can be. It turns out Nick Saban and everyone else who thought Ole Miss should let Kiffin stick around for the CFP were more concerned about the upheaval than the Rebels themselves were.
6. The all-SEC Sugar Bowl was a thrilling game, but the SEC as a whole is having a disastrous postseason. The league has gone 2-6 in CFP/bowl games when not facing each other. Only Ole Miss over Tulane in the first round and Texas over coach-less Michigan in the Citrus Bowl have prevailed. The types of schools SEC fans have long mocked — Illinois (over Tennessee), Houston (over LSU), Virginia (over Missouri) — have beaten them in bowls.
Granted, those non-CFP games can be deceiving in the age of opt-outs. But a telling result came in the Dec. 31 ReliaQuest Bowl, when the teams combined had just one player missing. Vanderbilt, a 10-2 squad boasting the Heisman runner-up (Diego Pavia), could not stop 8-4 Iowa, falling 34-27. Vandy, of course, was one of the seven SEC teams commissioner Greg Sankey said “merited inclusion” in the CFP.
Meanwhile, the Big Ten is 9-4 this postseason. Maybe Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti should have been the one lobbying for seven teams.
7. Indiana’s meteoric rise under Cignetti has been the best thing to happen to college football in many years. The Hoosiers have broken every glass ceiling that kept programs of its ilk down for most of the sport’s history. And it truly never would have been possible prior to the transfer portal and NIL.
Heisman winner Fernando Mendoza was at his very best against Alabama, with perfectly placed touchdowns to Charlie Becker and Omar Cooper Jr. But the game got out of hand because Indiana manhandled the Tide in the trenches. Center Pat Coogan, a transfer from Notre Dame this season, was named Rose Bowl MVP by ESPN’s broadcast team. And despite being without top pass-rusher Stephen Daley, the Hoosiers got to Bama QB Ty Simpson (and later Austin Mack) with blitzers like Devan Boykin and Rolijah Hardy.
8. After IU running back Roman Hemby crossed the goal line to make it 38-3 with 10 minutes left, Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit said the quiet part out loud. “Alabama being humiliated by this Indiana team,” said Fowler. “Yeah, this is embarrassing,” added Herbstreit. It became the program’s most lopsided defeat since 1998.
While Kalen DeBoer’s Tide won their first-round game at Oklahoma and were not even expected to beat Indiana, getting blown out in both the SEC Championship Game (28-7 to Georgia) and this one will make for a tense offseason in Tuscaloosa. DeBoer was always going to face impossible expectations while succeeding Saban, but his first two teams have combined to lose eight games. Saban lost eight across his last five seasons.
DeBoer got the Alabama job thanks to his remarkable two-year run with Michael Penix Jr. at Washington, but his offense has looked like that one in only bits and pieces. He badly needs some portal upgrades, especially in the running game.
Chris Fowler: "Alabama being humiliated by this Indiana team."
9. Indiana first made us realize, oh, these guys are for real, when they went to Eugene and shut down Oregon’s offense in a 30-20 upset. The fifth-seeded Ducks haven’t lost since, and now get a semifinal rematch with the Hoosiers in next Friday’s Peach Bowl after blanking No. 4 Texas Tech 23-0 in the Orange Bowl.
The Red Raiders’ vaunted defense did everything it could to give their team a chance, holding Oregon to 3.8 yards per play and 1.4 yards per rushing attempt. But their offense looked hapless. QB Behren Morton, the Big 12’s top-rated passer, threw for just 137 yards with two picks and got stripped on a Matayo Uiagalelei sack in the third quarter to set up a short Oregon touchdown that broke the defensive stalemate.
Offense was not Tech’s strength to begin with, but it served its purpose in Big 12 play. Oregon’s defense was a step up, though, in talent and athleticism, and it dominated from beginning to end.
10. At this point, I’d be reluctant to pick anyone against Indiana, much less a team it already beat by double digits on the road this season. But nor would I rule out Oregon. That first game was nearly three months ago, on Oct. 11, in QB Dante Moore’s third Big Ten start. He kicked it into gear shortly thereafter. The Ducks have held six of their eight opponents to 16 points or less since then.
On the flip side, this year’s Oregon offensive line is not on the level of Lanning’s previous units. They got largely dominated Thursday by Texas Tech’s star D-linemen David Bailey, Lee Hunter and Romello Height, making it difficult to finish drives. (The Ducks went 4-of-19 on third downs.) Offensive coordinator Will Stein may need to get extra-creative to crack the Hoosiers’ stout D.
Indiana handled Oregon in their first matchup, but can an improved Dante Moore lead the Ducks to a win? (Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)
11. The Orange Bowl was Texas Tech’s chance to prove itself on a bigger stage than the Big 12’s regular season can provide. Obviously, it did not. This was still a historic season for the 12-2 Red Raiders, which won their first Big 12 title and should finish in the top 10 for the first time in school history. Cody Campbell and Co. got their money’s worth, but the program still has ground to climb if it hopes to compete for national championships.
But hey, I said the same thing about Indiana after its first-round exit last year. The portal opens Friday, and Joey McGuire’s team is widely expected to splurge for Cincinnati QB Brendan Sorsby. He’s talented, but to this point, inconsistent. But hey, I said the same thing about Mendoza when Indiana landed him.
12. I will happily sell my remaining shares of my “I still don’t fully trust Mario Cristobal” stock. After four years of mostly steady progress marred by inexplicable losses, the Miami alum has built a program fully capable of winning the national title following the Canes’ 24-14 takedown of defending champ Ohio State. The last team into the field has now knocked off an 11-1 SEC team, Texas A&M, and a 12-1 Big Ten team that spent most of the season at No. 1 in the polls to reach the program’s highest perch in 23 years.
The “U” isn’t fully back, but Cristobal has his alma mater much closer to the pinnacle than predecessors Randy Shannon, Al Golden, Mark Richt or Manny Diaz ever got.
13. Cristobal took several bites at the apple back at Oregon, winning both the Pac-12 and a Rose Bowl in 2019 and knocking off a top-three Ohio State team on the road in his final season there. But that 2021 team imploded down the stretch, at which point he left for Miami only to go 12-13 his first two seasons. Cam Ward led his third team to 10 wins but cost itself a Playoff berth with a season-ending loss at Syracuse. This year’s team nearly did the same with midseason defeats to Louisville and SMU.
But when finally given its chance by the committee, Rueben Bain and the Miami defense overwhelmed the Buckeyes’ offensive line in the first half, with Keionte Scott’s pick six of Julian Sayin opening a 14-0 lead. And when Ohio State got within 17-14 in the second half, Carson Beck, Mark Fletcher Jr. and the offense drove down the field and salted away the game.
Now the Canes face Ole Miss in Arizona, where they’ll need to get after Chambliss like they did A&M’s Marcel Reed and Ohio State’s Sayin. I have no idea who will win. If it’s Miami, though, I don’t think they’re going to have much trouble filling Hard Rock Stadium for this year’s national championship game.
14. It’s hard to call this a “bad” season for the Buckeyes when they won 12 games and ended their Michigan drought, but it ended with no Big Ten championship and no CFP wins. The Buckeyes underachieved for 12 games in 2024 but got in, got hot and won the trophy. This year they started 12-0 and at times looked unbeatable but peaked in late November and didn’t make it to January.
That’s probably how it’s going to be now year-to-year for annual contenders like Ohio State and Georgia. It’s not enough to have the “best” team, it’s got to follow the right trajectory.
Ryan Day made one big decision that may have backfired. He purposefully slowed down his offense’s tempo this season to preserve his players for the CFP. That worked fine against 12 mostly overmatched foes, but against Indiana and Miami, the Buckeyes didn’t get enough possessions. They had back-to-back long TD drives in the third quarter Friday, but after being forced to punt with 5:56 left, they ran out of time to complete a comeback.
The good news is his 2025 offense was young. Standouts Sayin, Jeremiah Smith and Bo Jackson should all be back. They’ll be in the mix yet again.
15. Just how good is Indiana’s Cignetti? He’s the only coach in eight CFP quarterfinal games to date who’s figured out how to conquer the curse of the first-round bye. The higher-seeded teams with two extra weeks off than their opponents are now 1-7 in those games since the expansion to 12 teams last year. Maybe it’s all a coincidence, but I kind of doubt it.
It’s not that those teams are losing; it’s how they look, especially early in the game. Last year, No. 1 seed Oregon did not look remotely like it did during its 13-0 regular season in falling behind Ohio State 34-0. This year, it was the Buckeyes’ offense that played its worst first half of the season against Miami. Texas Tech’s offense was a trainwreck. Even Indiana started slow, allowing two sacks on its first possession before finding its footing.
Obviously, even in the four-team CFP, teams had long layoffs before the bowls, but at least it was true for both teams. Now you’ve got one team that’s kept a fairly normal schedule against another that hasn’t played in 24/25 days. It’s clearly a factor.
16. All in all, though, this Dec. 31/Jan. 1 was exactly what organizers envisioned when they created the 12-team CFP. Compelling games. Great stories. And most of all: new blood.
I’m sure we’ll read next week that Miami-Ole Miss and Indiana-Oregon were down double-digit percent in the TV ratings from last year’s all-blue-blood semifinals of Penn State-Notre Dame and Ohio State-Texas. Sorry, ESPN. But the sport as a whole benefits far more from Indiana and Ole Miss crashing the party.
