Notre Dame shuts out Oregon, Oklahoma stays unbeaten, and one quarterfinal is still to play.
Eight postseason games in the books and one still to play. The bracket is down to a Final Four that isn't quite full yet, Oklahoma still hasn't lost, two bowls went to the favourites, and Tayne — of all people — has scored 83 points in two rounds and given up seven.
Notre Dame 62, Memphis 7. The largest margin of the postseason, against the CPU team that keeps finding its way into this bracket. Fifty-five points. Tayne wasn't interested in a competitive tune-up.
Ole Miss 31, Ohio State 3. Curt scored three points. Three. Seven days after winning the Michigan game by forty and losing the Big Ten final by four, his season ends on a field goal. Pat's defence did what Pat's defence hasn't done all year, and Kewan Lacy got to play a home playoff game with a second Heisman on the shelf.
Florida 34, Tennessee 31. The only first-round game anybody had to sweat. Polo takes a third straight game decided in the closing minutes, and Purp's stretch as the hottest coach in the league ends one round in.
Miami 14, Arizona State 6. Twenty combined points, the lowest-scoring game of the season. TBO won the Big 12 and got 26 minutes of offence for it — a conference champion out in the first round without cracking double digits.
The 5 seed shut out the 4 seed. Bowzer had a bye, a week of rest, and the second-best point differential in the league, and he did not score. Notre Dame's two playoff games: 62-7 and 21-0.
Worth remembering where Tayne was three weeks ago. He lost 38-7 to Purp in Week 10 and followed it with roughly forty messages explaining that he hadn't started his starters, wasn't at the controller, had his depth chart set for CPU, and would rather play in round one anyway. He got his wish about round one. The rest of it looks different now.
Stew is 14-0. The Heisman winner's season ends by three touchdowns, and the defending champion has now won a conference title and a quarterfinal without anybody getting within two scores of him since Florida in Week 8.
Ninety-four points, the highest-scoring game of the year, and the end of the best three-week run anybody outside Norman has put together. Polo beat Alabama, beat Georgia, beat Tennessee, and lost the two games that would have defined his season — the SEC final by 42 and this one by ten. LT moves on at 14-1.
Not yet played. States or Lute takes the last semifinal spot and the right to meet Clemson.
Gator: Alabama 33, UCLA 18. Jason closes out a season that started 8-0 and got away from him.
Citrus: Texas 38, Washington 6. Work by 32 over a Frank team that finishes having been beaten 41-3, 41-14 and now 38-6 in its last three meaningful games.
Neither counts toward Playoff Points — bowls sit outside the bracket — but both go on the record.
Oklahoma against Notre Dame is the game. The unbeaten 1 seed against the team that has outscored two playoff opponents 83-7, one of whom had a bye and a top-four seed. Stew has beaten everybody put in front of him for two straight seasons; Tayne has beaten his last two by a combined 76.
On the other side, Clemson waits on the Fiesta. LT has now beaten Lute three times this season if it's Miami, and hasn't seen Penn State since States took the Big Ten by four points over Ohio State.
One game to play before the semifinals are set. Oklahoma has not lost since the last title game, and the road to a repeat still runs through Norman.
