The quarterfinal round of the College Football Playoff is everything college football fans pleaded for, for years. Matchups that pitted the best teams that season against each other and a true evaluation of who the top teams are. Indiana is the only team in the 12-team, College Football Playoff era to get a first-round bye and win the quarterfinals game. They did it by whooping Alabama 38-3. Ole Miss got the better end of a shootout in the matinee Saturday night, avenging an early season loss to a conference foe, continuing its dream season to the CFP semifinals; the Rebels took down Georgia, 39-34.
Meanwhile, against all odds, Miami shut down one of the best offenses in college football this season and made a mockery of the most accurate quarterback in Julian Sayin on New Year’s Eve to prove “The U is back”; the Hurricanes stunned Ohio State, the No. 2 overall seed 24-14. Do you see the pattern? Every College Football Playoff blue blood lost in the quarterfinals round and with it, brought a changing of the guard. This is what the CFP was supposed to be about and now that the same teams aren’t winning like they used to, it makes for an exciting evolution of college football.
Parity in the CFP might be saving the expanded CFP field
The most alarming loss of the three quarterfinals games on Thursday was Alabama’s goose egg against Indiana. The Crimson Tide have the most wins in the College Football Playoff era (nine) and the most semifinals appearances (eight), yet they failed to make it past the quarterfinals this season.
Georgia and Ohio State, two teams that earned first-round byes, are the two other dominant teams in the CFP era that lost in the quarterfinals as well. Before the playoff started, Ohio State was favored to defend its national title.
What happened this year? Well, the obvious is NIL has changed college football to where the talent is spread out around the top teams.
Indiana is having the best two-year stretch in recent history and Ole Miss is having its best season ever. This isn’t by coincidence. The teams that usually run college football just aren’t as dominant in recruiting as they used to be, which is why there’s more parity than ever.
Oregon is the only CFP blue blood that’s still alive in the field after they shut out Texas Tech 23-0 in the Orange Bowl. They’re making their third appearance in the CFP and second in the semifinals.
Why new faces succeeding in CFP era is good for expansion
The narrative around the Group of 5 teams in the CFP has been sickening. But what’s not getting talked about is how both JMU and Tulane scored more points than Alabama and Texas Tech, with both teams losing by less than Bama did as well. Let’s not forget how bad Texas A&M looked in the first round, either, against Miami.
Big picture, it really doesn’t mean much. But with context, it shows that there was a reason the G5 teams got in and sometimes a bad matchup stalls your success. Just like the two G5 teams were slandered for getting blown out, so should Texas Tech and Alabama.
The fact that Indiana, Miami and Ole Miss all won, taking down CFP powerhouses in the process shows that the expanded CFP field is doing exactly what it’s designed to do. The whole reason college football fans clamored for a playoff and then begged for more teams to get in was to have exciting matchups while seeing which teams truly are the best in any respective season.
For years, Ohio State, Alabama and Georgia have been seen as the toughest matchups for anybody trying to win a national championship. The 2025 edition of the CFP proved that’s not true anymore, which just might save CFP expansion.
I know some national pundits and ESPN analysts would love to see 12 SEC teams play for a national title, but the CFP should be about getting the best teams in the field and seeing them play their way to a national championship, regardless who it is. The best teams are the ones that had strong regular seasons, not ones that had “good” losses because of their conference affiliation.