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The 10th and final four-team College Football Playoff starts Monday. The two games on the docket -- No. 1 Michigan vs. No. 4 Alabama in the Rose Bowl Game presented by Prudential and No. 2 Washington vs. No. 3 Texas in the Allstate Sugar Bowl -- pack seemingly endless plotlines and possibilities, and we're only beginning to talk about them in detail. Starting in 2024, we will see an expanded, 12-team playoff field -- a genuine tournament structure seen at basically every other level of football, from high school to smaller-school college to pro. With more bids, the CFP committee will have more margin for error: Had this year's main controversy -- the appalling selection of one-loss Alabama over unbeaten Florida State -- happened next year, for instance, it would have involved who did and didn't get a first-round bye, not who got a shot at the title at all. But with the 12-team era dawning, let's look back at what we've seen and learned from the four-team era. Throughout these 10 seasons, specific games had an outsized impact on who did and didn't make the cut. From Big Ten championships to a couple of Pac-12 no-shows to lots of Alabama-Georgias, here are 19 of the most impactful games of these 10 title races. More bowl coverage:
One question for every game
Key takeaways
Play Bowl Mania  2014 No. 5 Baylor Bears 61, No. 9 TCU Horned Frogs 58   The best game of 2014 and a downright silly track meet. Baylor gained 782 yards to TCU's 485, but the Horned Frogs nearly stole this one with help from a second-quarter kick return score and a fourth-quarter pick-six. Baylor trailed 58-37 with 11 minutes left but scored three touchdowns in six minutes, then knocked in a game-winning field goal at the buzzer. This was obviously a huge result between top-10 teams, but it only got bigger as both teams kept winning. They reached the finish line a combined 22-2, with Baylor losing only to West Virginia the week after the TCU game.
Big Ten championship: No. 6 Ohio State Buckeyes 59, No. 11 Wisconsin Badgers 0   Heading into championship weekend, TCU was ranked third in the CFP rankings, with unbeaten Florida State fourth, Baylor fifth and Ohio State sixth. The CFP committee proved willing to be swayed by final impressions when Urban Meyer's Buckeyes crushed Wisconsin in the Big Ten championship. They more than doubled the Badgers in total yardage (558-258) and forced four turnovers, too. This was a resounding statement, and while this list is about games that happened, the nonexistence of a Big 12 championship ended up mattering as well. The 10-team conference named Baylor as its One True Champion because of the head-to-head win over TCU; that symbolism seemingly had an effect on the committee, which bumped Baylor ahead of TCU ... and Ohio State over both. The Buckeyes proved their playoff worthiness by beating Alabama and Oregon to win the national title, but TCU dropping three spots without playing was awfully noteworthy.
2015Big Ten championship: No. 5 Michigan State Spartans 16, No. 4 Iowa Hawkeyes 13   After a tricky go in 2014, the committee had it pretty easy the next season. One power conference champion went unbeaten (Clemson), three others finished with one loss (Alabama, Michigan State and Oklahoma), and one plus three equals four. Convenient. The Big Ten championship between 12-0 Iowa and 11-1 Michigan State ended up deciding the final spot, and it came down to the final 30 seconds. After five field goals in 45 minutes, Iowa struck out of nowhere with an 85-yard touchdown pass from C.J. Beathard to Tevaun Smith on the first play of the fourth quarter. That gave the Hawkeyes a 13-9 lead, and it almost held up. But MSU embarked on a historic 22-play, nine-minute drive. After converting four third downs and a fourth down, the Spartans won the game with a gutty LJ Scott touchdown with 27 seconds left.
2016Pittsburgh Panthers 42, Penn State Nittany Lions 39   Most of the games on this list either happened late in a given season or involved two CFP contenders. This one did neither. It was a Week 2 matchup of unranked teams boasting only moderate ambitions. But when Penn State ripped off 10 wins in its next 11 games -- including a home upset of No. 2 Ohio State and a Big Ten championship victory over No. 6 Wisconsin -- this one ended up giving the committee a tricky call: Should it select a one-loss Buckeyes team with wins over three top-10 (at the time) teams and a loss only to the Big Ten champ? Or should they absolve PSU of early losses to both Pitt and Michigan, reward it for late-season wins and break the two-loss barrier for the first time? They went with the former. In 10 years, they still haven't given a bid to a two-loss team. Of course, the choice would have been pretty easy if a fourth down had been marked slightly differently in Columbus. No. 2 Ohio State Buckeyes 30, No.3 Michigan Wolverines 27  The spot heard 'round the world. Michigan could have clinched the Big Ten East title with a win, and since the Wolverines would have been favored over Wisconsin in the conference championship, they would have been in the driver's seat for the No. 2 seed in the CFP. They led 17-7 late in the third quarter, but Tyler Durbin's 23-yard field goal sent the game to overtime. Michigan took a 27-24 lead in the second OT possession and a J.T. Barrett fourth-down keeper just barely moved the chains. Curtis Samuel's 15-yard game-winning touchdown followed, giving the committee quite the headache.
2017SEC championship: No. 6 Georgia Bulldogs 28, No. 2 Auburn Tigers 7   Week 12 had completely scrambled the rankings. Both No. 1 Alabama and No. 2 Miami, two of the nation's three remaining unbeaten power-conference teams, had fallen victim to upsets -- the latter to an unranked Pitt, the former to smoking-hot, sixth-ranked Auburn. The Tigers had given both Alabama and Georgia their only losses, and despite early losses to LSU and playoff-bound Clemson, they found themselves second in the CFP rankings heading into the SEC championship. With a win over Georgia, they would become the first two-loss team in the semis. They ran out of gas one quarter early. The score was 13-7 early in the fourth quarter when Terry Godwin caught a 7-yard touchdown pass from Jake Fromm to extend Georgia's lead. Then came the dagger: After a lightning-quick three-and-out from Auburn, D'Andre Swift raced 64 yards for Georgia's second touchdown in 2½ minutes. The Dawgs vaulted to third and the Tigers fell to seventh. Big Ten championship: No. 8 Ohio State Buckeyes 27, No. 4 Wisconsin Badgers 21 Wisconsin spent much of the early CFP era as a foil, a challenging team that an aspiring contender would defeat late in a given season. But in the 2017 Big Ten championship, roles were reversed. The Badgers were unbeaten and one win away from a CFP bid, while two-loss Ohio State played the role of aspiring spoiler. The Buckeyes took a 21-7 lead early in the second quarter, but Wisconsin slowly came back. Chris James' short touchdown cut the Badgers' deficit to 24-21 early in the fourth quarter, and they got two late opportunities to take the lead. But Damon Webb picked off a desperate, fourth-and-long pass from Alex Hornibrook with 1:09 left and Ohio State held on. The loss not only knocked Wisconsin out of the top four, but also allowed Alabama to sneak in. Two wins (and a famous second-and-26 heave) later, the Tide had their fifth national title in nine years.
2018Purdue Boilermakers 49, No. 2 Ohio State Buckeyes 20  The wild, late twists of 2017 had to tide over chaos lovers for a while because 2018 was as straightforward as it gets. Three power-conference teams (including Notre Dame) finished unbeaten, and for all intents and purposes the fourth spot came down to a choice between (a) a one-loss Oklahoma team that won the Big 12 and suffered only a narrow loss to a nine-win Texas or (b) a one-loss Ohio State team that won the Big Ten but got its doors blown off in the Tyler Trent game. It ended up being a pretty easy choice. SEC championship: No. 1 Alabama Crimson Tide 35, No. 4 Georgia Bulldogs 28  Oklahoma did need help from Alabama to get in. The unbeaten Crimson Tide were likely in regardless of what happened in the SEC championship, but Georgia was 11-1 and ranked fourth, and the Dawgs' playoff prospects looked awfully strong when they took a 28-14 lead in Atlanta early in the third quarter. The score was 28-21 when Jalen Hurts subbed in to pull a Reverse Tua. A year earlier in the national title game, Tua Tagovailoa had checked in for a struggling Hurts and led a Crimson Tide comeback against Georgia. This time, Hurts tied the score with a touchdown pass to Jerry Jeudy with 5:19 left. After a disastrous fake punt attempt from the Dawgs, Hurts scored the game winner on a 15-yard run with 1:05 left.
2019No. 1 LSU Tigers 46, No. 2 Alabama Crimson Tide 41  For the second straight year, the committee was able to shift into cruise control in 2019. Three unbeaten power conference champs got in, along with the only one-loss champion. Easy peasy. But it was only easy because LSU won this titanic battle in Tuscaloosa. Tagovailoa, fighting back from an ankle injury, suffered two terribly costly turnovers in the first half, and LSU scored twice in the final 26 seconds of the second quarter to take a 33-13 halftime lead. Bama scored 28 second-half points, but Joe Burrow and the Tigers answered each time they had to. Another Tagovailoa injury and a season-ending Iron Bowl loss officially eliminated the Tide from contention, keeping the Tide out of the CFP for the first time in six seasons. Pac-12 championship: No. 13 Oregon Ducks 37, No. 5 Utah Utes 15   Once again, Oklahoma reached the CFP after some Championship Week assistance. With No. 4 Georgia getting throttled by LSU in the SEC title game, Kyle Whittingham and Utah likely needed only a win over Oregon to make their first playoff appearance. But they no-showed in the Pac-12 championship. Oregon raced to a 20-0 halftime lead and when the Utes cut the Ducks' lead to 23-15 heading into the fourth quarter, CJ Verdell's 70-yard touchdown run provided the knockout blow. 2020No. 4 Notre Dame Fighting Irish 47, No. 1 Clemson Tigers 40   The 2020 COVID-19 season was a mess in about a thousand different ways, and at the end of all of it we didn't get much of a CFP race either. Alabama and Ohio State both finished their regular seasons (of drastically different lengths) unbeaten, and Clemson and Notre Dame each went 10-1, losing only to each other. Clemson star Trevor Lawrence missed this game with a positive COVID diagnosis, but backup quarterback DJ Uiagalelei nearly carried the Tigers to victory with 439 passing yards. After falling behind 23-10, Uiagalelei engineered a 23-3 run to give Clemson the lead, but Ian Book's short touchdown pass to Avery Davis forced overtime, and two Kyren Williams scores won the game. Clemson's rematch blowout of the Irish in the ACC championship nearly gave 8-1 Texas A&M the No. 4 spot, but in the end, even without Lawrence, the Irish's win plumped up Notre Dame's resume just enough.
2021 No. 7 Cincinnati Bearcats 24, No. 9 Notre Dame Fighting Irish 13  Cincinnati looked spectacular while going 9-0 in the 2020 regular season, but the Bearcats' mid-major status meant the committee never took them seriously. They topped out at just eighth in the final CFP rankings. Since they had proved themselves in 2020, however, and since their 2021 nonconference schedule happened to feature a trip to South Bend, the Bearcats had an interesting opportunity. They took advantage of it. Two Desmond Ridder touchdown passes gave Cincy a 17-0 halftime lead, and after Notre Dame cut the lead to 17-13, Ridder's 6-yard run TD closed out a statement win. The Bearcats still needed loads of help from a flawed power-conference field that produced only two one-loss champions (and a one-loss Georgia), but when the Bearcats finished 13-0 and Notre Dame won out to finish 11-1, the committee had no choice but to give Cincy a bid. No. 6 Michigan Wolverines 42, No. 2 Ohio State Buckeyes 27 What's better than ending a decade-long losing streak to your biggest rival? Stealing that rival's CFP bid while you do it. Four second-half touchdowns from Hassan Hawkins gave Michigan a historic and cathartic win, after which the Wolverines jumped from sixth to second and the Buckeyes, now with two losses, fell from second to seventh. Five years after The Spot, Michigan finally earned its first playoff berth with a Big Ten championship blowout of Iowa. SEC championship: No. 3 Alabama Crimson Tide 41, No. 1 Georgia Bulldogs 24 Thanks to the aforementioned flawed field, unbeaten Georgia had likely already locked up its CFP bid before the SEC championship. Alabama, however, was 11-1 and playing for its playoff life. And after spotting the Dawgs an early 10-0 lead, the Tide rolled. Bryce Young accounted for four touchdowns in a 16-minute burst as Bama went up two touchdowns in the third quarter. Jordan Battle's 42-yard pick-six early in the fourth locked up a statement win. Bama was in, but Georgia would get revenge in the national title game.
2022Pac-12 championship: No. 12 Utah Utes 47, No. 4 USC Trojans 24  Three years after falling apart at the finish line, Utah got to play the spoiler instead of the spoiled, and the committee had it easy again. The regular season produced two unbeaten conference champs (Georgia and Michigan) and only two other power conference teams with only one loss. Both TCU and Ohio State got in despite ending their season with losses -- Ohio State to Michigan, TCU to Kansas State in the Big 12 championship. Only one would have made it, however, if USC hadn't completely melted down in Las Vegas. Needing only one more win to reach the CFP for the first time, the Trojans took a 17-3 lead early in the second quarter. But quarterback Caleb Williams was visibly impacted by a hamstring injury, and the USC defense was visibly impacted by, well, not being good. Utah unleashed a 24-0 run and took a 10-point lead early in the fourth quarter. USC scored to cut the lead to three, but late Utah touchdowns of 60, 53 and 23 yards turned this one into a laugher.
2023No. 11 Texas Longhorns 34, No. 3 Alabama Crimson Tide 24  You could say this Week 2 win boosted Texas' resume twice. It benefited the Longhorns in all the very obvious ways that a road win over Nick Saban's Tide in Tuscaloosa will. And it was a hell of a win, too: Bama overcame an early deficit to take a three-point lead into the fourth quarter, but Texas scored 21 points in seven minutes, with a pair of enormous Quinn Ewers-to-Adonai Mitchell touchdowns punctuating a statement win. With the committee's nearly religious adherence to head-to-head results as tiebreakers -- especially when the teams have the same number of overall losses -- this one ended up benefiting the Horns again when Texas, Alabama and Georgia all ended the season with one loss. Alabama beat Georgia and therefore had to be ahead of the Dawgs, and Texas beat Bama and therefore had to be ahead of the Tide. SEC championship: No. 8 Alabama Crimson Tide 27, No. 1 Georgia Bulldogs 24 We came within one game of having four unbeaten power-conference teams in the CFP at the same time. All Georgia had to do was finish off an Alabama team that had nearly lost to a mediocre Auburn in the Iron Bowl a week earlier. Instead, a pair of second quarter touchdown passes for Jalen Milroe, another long, late touchdown drive and an all-around stellar performance from the Bama defense -- Georgia gained just 321 yards, its lowest total in 41 games -- set up the most controversial CFP selection to date because of the last game on this list.  No. 4 Florida State Seminoles 58, North Alabama Lions 13   The CFP committee and its representatives have sworn for years that they are tasked with choosing the best four teams over the four most deserving and that they have the latitude to take injuries into account. But while basically every other game on this list was a statement win or a devastating loss for a contender, the most impactful game of the 2023 season was one in which a significantly favored contender won significantly. Because FSU quarterback Jordan Travis suffered a season-ending injury in the first quarter on Senior Day in Tallahassee, and because a spectacular case of groupthink overtook the committee on the final Saturday night of the regular season, an unbeaten team -- one whose increasingly dominant defense would have given it a shot at winning a CFP game or two -- was left out. If this is the way the selection process was supposed to work, then we got confirmation in the final year of the four-team era that it's an unacceptably bad process.
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