Can thrill-a-minute script continue to final?
Underdogs take best shot at Bulldogs
Coming on the heels of the most compelling pair of semifinal contests in the four-team College Football Playoff era, the Jan. 9 championship game at SoFi Stadium (Inglewood, Calif.; 7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN) between top-seeded Georgia and No. 3 TCU will have a tough act to follow. Fortunately, the finale has rarely disappointed, even in years when the preliminary matchups failed to deliver in the drama department.
As always, there are myriad storylines associated with this title tilt. But the main headline has to be the classic established power vs. upstart challenger narrative.
Georgia (14-0), of course, was expected to be here. The Bulldogs reached the pinnacle of the sport a year ago by finally conquering Alabama in the championship game. Despite sending a slew of talented players on to the NFL, particularly on the defensive side of the ball, Georgia reloaded and spent the entire season at or near the top of the polls. The Bulldogs now stand as the last undefeated squad from the Football Bowl Subdivision, though there were a couple of close calls.
The closest of all came last week at the Peach Bowl against Ohio State, a game many had pegged as a potential championship game matchup. That contest certainly had a title game feel as the two heavyweights exchanged haymakers literally until the stroke of midnight on the East Coast. The Bulldogs trailed by 14 points on two separate occasions but held a 42-41 lead as 2022 wound to a close. That was when the Buckeyes’ 50-yard field-goal attempt for the win sailed wide left, allowing the Bulldogs to survive and advance for the opportunity to repeat as national champions.
So while the Bulldogs’ presence in Inglewood was widely predicted, TCU’s was anything but. Coming off a 5-7 finish in 2021 and with a new head coach taking over, the Horned Frogs (13-1) weren’t on anyone’s radar when fall camp opened.
It wasn’t until an Oct. 1 demolition of usual Big 12 favorite Oklahoma that TCU finally cracked the Top 25. From there, this group of Horned Frogs began to earn their reputation as comeback kids, overcoming second-half deficits seemingly on a weekly basis and ultimately running the table in the regular season.
That effort was enough to get them into the playoff, even after losing the rematch with Kansas State in the conference title game. As it happens, the Fiesta Bowl upset of Michigan didn’t follow TCU’s usual script. The Horned Frogs grabbed a lead early and answered every challenge from the Wolverines with a big play of their own. It wasn’t the best executed game by either team, and it was perhaps fitting that it ended on a broken play thanks to an errant fourthdown snap by Michigan.
But it was wildly entertaining, as most Horned Frogs’ contests have been this season. They now find themselves as the first Big 12 squad to reach the title game since the current format was adopted in 2014.