End of an era: 5 best teams of the 4-team playoff
Which star-studded team tops our list of CFP champs?
The four-team College Football Playoff era comes to a close this season — one season after it should have ended. It was far from perfect and left us with plenty of controversy over the years, but it's safe to say it was a better postseason format than the BCS that preceded it.
While there's an expanded 12-team field to look forward to next season, let's first look back at the best games of the four-team playoff era.
[More from this series: Best games | Best players]
5. 2014 Ohio State (14-1)
The Buckeyes were the first team to win a College Football Playoff and, unless Alabama wins the title in January, one of just two schools to win as a No. 4 seed.
Ohio State went 11-1 in the 2014 regular season. The Buckeyes’ lone loss came in Week 2 at home to Virginia Tech as the Hokies jumped out to a 21-7 halftime lead. Ohio State reeled off 10 consecutive wins to end the season after that loss, including a 42-28 win over Michigan.
Starting QB J.T. Barrett suffered a season-ending ankle injury in the win over the Wolverines. Barrett had been thrust into the starting lineup at the start of the season after Braxton Miller suffered a torn labrum in August.
With Barrett out, Ohio State was forced to turn to No. 3 QB Cardale Jones for the Big Ten title game (sound familiar, Florida State fans?). The Buckeyes didn’t miss a beat with Jones at QB, as they blitzed Wisconsin 59-0 in the conference title game. The win was enough to move Ohio State up from No. 5 over TCU.
The Buckeyes entered the Sugar Bowl against Alabama as an 8-point underdog but scored 28 straight points over the second and third quarters to take control of the game after Alabama took a 21-6 lead.
Ezekiel Elliott was unstoppable. He rushed 20 times for 230 yards and two scores, while Jones found Devin Smith for two long passes.
Eleven days later, Ohio State used another blitz to win the national title over Oregon. After the Ducks cut the Buckeyes’ lead to one with 6:39 to go in the third quarter, Elliott scored three consecutive touchdowns to put the game away. He finished with 36 carries for 246 yards and four scores as Ohio State won its first national title since 2002.
4. 2020 Alabama (13-0)
The Crimson Tide didn’t have to sweat much during the 2020 season.
Alabama entered the season at No. 2 with Tua Tagovailoa off to the NFL and Mac Jones taking over as the full-time starter. Jones got some valuable reps at the end of the 2019 season after Tagovailoa suffered a hip injury and provided a glimpse of what was to come in 2020.
Throwing to receivers like Heisman winner DeVonta Smith, Jaylen Waddle and John Metchie III, and Najee Harris with him in the backfield, Jones set the single-season record for completion percentage. Jones was 311-of-402 passing for 4,500 yards and 41 TDs to just four interceptions. Unless Bo Nix (77.2%) has an incredible game in the Fiesta Bowl against Liberty, Jones’ completion percentage of 77.4% should stand for another season.
The Tide’s closest game of their conference-only regular season came in Week 3 in a 63-48 win over Ole Miss. Harris rushed for 206 yards and five touchdowns as his fourth TD gave Alabama the lead for good in the fourth quarter.
Florida then pushed Alabama in the SEC title game as the Tide failed to put the Gators away after a 28-10 first-half lead. However, Florida never led in the second half and Alabama won 52-46.
That was Alabama’s closest postseason game. The Rose Bowl CFP semifinal in Arlington was a snoozer as Smith caught three touchdowns in a 31-14 win over Notre Dame. That victory set up Alabama’s first game against Ohio State since the 2015 Sugar Bowl and this time, Alabama was by far the superior team. The Crimson Tide scored 28 points in the second quarter to take a 35-17 halftime lead on the way to a 52-24 win.
Jones completed 80% of his passes for 464 yards and five touchdowns in the title game, while Smith had 12 catches for 215 yards and three scores.
3. 2018 Clemson (15-0)
The best team Dabo Swinney has ever had at Clemson outscored opponents by over 30 points per game and won its two College Football Playoff games by a combined score of 74-19.
After missing out on the CFP for the first time in three seasons in 2017, the Tigers were phenomenal in 2018. Especially after making a change at quarterback. After splitting time with Kelly Bryant to start the season, Trevor Lawrence took over as the starter in September.
Lawrence was injured in a Friday night scare at Syracuse, but returned to play every game the rest of the season. That 27-23 win over the Orange was the last time Clemson beat an opponent by just a single possession.
The Tigers put up 63 points on Wake Forest and 77 points on Louisville before ending the season scoring 56 against South Carolina. Pitt was no match for Clemson in the ACC title game as the Tigers won 42-10 and Travis Etienne ran for 156 yards and two scores on just 12 attempts.
The 13-0 season set up a semifinal against Notre Dame and the Tigers waxed the Irish, 30-3. Justyn Ross, a freshman sensation, caught two TD passes in the second quarter as Clemson had the game put away at halftime.
A third title game with Alabama awaited the Tigers after the win over Notre Dame and, unlike the first two, this game wasn’t close. The Tigers outscored the Crimson Tide 30-3 over the second and third quarters after leading 14-13 after the first. Etienne scored three TDs, while Lawrence also threw three touchdowns in the 44-16 win.
2. 2022 Georgia (15-0)
The Bulldogs entered the 2022 season as the defending national champions and made a massive Week 1 statement with a 49-3 win over Oregon. After that, only Missouri — in Week 5 — was able to hang within one score of Georgia until the playoff.
Like the team that won the national title the previous year, this Georgia team could beat you through the air or on the ground and had a defense that constantly rotated talent in and out of the front seven. After Jordan Davis, Lewis Cine, Quay Walker and Nakobe Dean went to the NFL, players like Jalen Carter, Smael Mondon, Malaki Starks and Kelee Ringo stepped up. After allowing just 10 points per game in 2021, the Bulldogs gave up just 14 points a game in 2022.
And while you could make a slight argument the defense took a step back in 2022, the offense got even better. Stetson Bennett threw for over 4,000 yards in 2022, while Kenny McIntosh, Daijun Edwards and Kendall Milton each rushed for over 500 yards, and Brock Bowers and Ladd McConkey were forces in the passing game.
Ohio State gave Georgia its biggest scare of the year in the Peach Bowl as the Bulldogs had to overcome a 14-point fourth-quarter deficit and needed a missed field goal as time expired to win 42-41. The game-winning score came as Bennett found AD Mitchell for a 10-yard TD with less than a minute to go.
The title game was much, much different than the semifinal. Georgia immediately showed just how much better it was than TCU on the way to a historic 65-7 win. Bennett threw for 304 yards and four TDs as the Horned Frogs had just 188 yards and three turnovers against the Georgia defense. It’s the biggest blowout in College Football Playoff history.
1. 2019 LSU (15-0)
The top team of the four-team playoff era features the best offense of the 2000s.
The Tigers went 10-3 in 2018 and averaged 32 points per game and 5.5 yards per play. Those weren’t spectacular numbers — and certainly not figures that foreshadowed what we were about to see the next season.
In 2019, LSU averaged over 48 points per game and a staggering 7.9 yards a play as the Tigers were simply unstoppable. After throwing for 16 TDs in 2018, Joe Burrow became a runaway Heisman winner and No. 1 overall pick with 5,671 passing yards and 60 touchdowns. Clyde Edwards-Helaire rushed for 1,415 yards and both Ja’Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson had over 1,500 receiving yards and combined for 38 touchdown catches.
The Tigers failed to score at least 36 points just once. That came in Week 9 in a nail-biting 23-20 win over Auburn. Two weeks later, the Tigers won a 46-41 shootout at Alabama and scored at least 50 points in each of their final three games of the regular season.
After demolishing Georgia 37-10 in the SEC title game, LSU ran Oklahoma off the field in the Peach Bowl. The Tigers scored 49 points in the first half as Burrow threw seven first-half TD passes. Jefferson caught four of them and LSU finished the game seven yards shy of 700 total yards of offense.
Clemson tried to hang around in the national championship game a week later, but Burrow threw for 463 yards and five TDs in a 42-25 win. His final two TD passes put the game away after Clemson cut LSU’s lead to three in the third quarter.
