This year’s College Football (CFB) playoffs and bowls season was filled with controversy as always that featured major disagreement over who deserved the final spot in the CFB playoffs. The playoffs are picked by a committee of 13 college football officials. The committee picks who they deem to be the four best teams in the country and rank them 1-4. The number-one ranked team plays the number-four ranked team and the second and third ranked teams play each other; the winners play each other in the national championship.

For the 2018 playoffs, Clemson was ranked #1, Oklahoma #2, Georgia #3 and Alabama #4. The first game to take place was the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. The game was filled with NFL prospects including Heisman winning quarterback Baker Mayfield for Oklahoma and the star-studded running back duo of Sony Michel and Nick Chubb for Georgia. The game lived up to the hype and had to be decided in overtime with Sony Michel running in a 27-yard touchdown. The final score was 54-48 and broke Rose Bowl records as the highest scoring game ever and was the first Rose Bowl to ever go to overtime.

“I couldn’t believe Georgia came back” senior Sebastian Ospina exclaimed, “Baker Mayfield was easily the best player in CFB and I thought his team would prevail,” added Ospina. The game recorded over 26.8 million viewers and is the 5th most watched game on ESPN ever. The next semi-final game was the Sugar Bowl in The Super Dome in New Orleans and had Clemson playing Alabama, a rematch from the 2016 and 2017 championship games. It was known that Alabama wanted to avenge its loss to Clemson from last year, and they came out in full force, jumping out to a 10-0 lead in the first quarter, and they never looked back winning 24-6. “I was honestly expecting a better game,” comments senior Ben Rehs, “I thought the rematch between the two teams would be more competitive, but it showed how much better Alabama really was,” added Rehs.

The championship matchup was set as it was an all South Eastern Conference (SEC) event, featuring the Georgia Bulldogs vs. the Alabama Crimson Tide. The Southern trend continued as the venue for the game was held in the new Mercedes-Benz arena in Atlanta, Georgia. The game was highly anticipated, as reunion for the two head coaches as Georgia’s head coach Kirby Smart had been an assistant coach for Alabama’s Nick Saban for 8 years. The Bulldogs jumped out to 13-0 and shut out Alabama in the first half and then one of the strangest moves in college football history occurred. Saban pulled his starting quarterback Jalen Hurts and started the second half with freshman quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. Tagovailoa had never played any meaningful minutes in his career and in his debut put on a performance of a lifetime. He led the Tide from 13-0 deficit to bring them within 7 points. Losing 20-13 the Tide scored with 3:49 converting a fourth and four to tie the game 20-20. Georgia had a chance to score again but it was forced to punt leaving time for an Alabama drive. Alabama drove down the field and with two seconds left and sent its kicker onto the field with a chance to end the game. ‘Bama’s kicker lined up for the 36-yard field goal and had a chance to become a hero; the play did not go as planned. The field goal missed wide left and had no chance of going in sending the game to overtime.

This was only the second overtime game in championship history and it was the first time in playoff history a team played two overtime games in the playoffs (Georgia). Georgia received the ball first and had to settle for a field goal to give them a 23-20 lead. Alabama then had a chance to tie the game with a field goal or win the score of a touchdown. The first play of their possession Tagovailoa was sacked for a loss of 16 yards and the game seemed to be over as this had Alabama facing a 2nd and 26 while being out of field goal position; but on the next play the unlikely happened. Tagovailoa connected with his wide receiver DeVonta Smith for a 41-yard touchdown pass to end the game. Alabama shutdown its haters and won the title in an amazing game. This new national title gave Saban; Alabama’s head coach his sixth national title and gave the Alabama football program its 17th title overall and fifth and nine years.