College Football’s Final Four Storyline

The moral of this story: who knows, other than something doesn't totally add up when not a single one of the top four teams, all of which received the advantage of a first-round bye, advances into college football's final four.

No conference championship? 

No problem. None of the schools won a conference title or earned a first-round bye in the playoffs, but each features a coach who has never won a national championship before.

The semifinals are set: 

Next Thursday in the Orange Bowl, it will be No. 6 Penn State vs. No. 7 Notre Dame. Then, Friday in the Cotton Bowl, it will be No. 5 Texas vs. No. 8 Ohio State.

Texas is the highest remaining seed. There's no way Ohio State should be seeded eighth. Suddenly, seventh-seeded Notre Dame seems like the bracket's cuddly underdog. 

That's one way to look at it. Here's another: The SEC is on the clock. If Texas loses the Cotton Bowl to Ohio State, the SEC will be out of the championship game for the second consecutive season. 

One thing this expanded tournament could still use: a well-played, truly great football game. Other than the two-overtime win by Texas over Arizona State on Wednesday, all these playoff games have been double-digit snoozefests.

Ohio State is the hottest team in the field but still is internalizing its own special angst of not being able to win the big one on the heels of a fourth straight loss to rival Michigan to close the regular season. 

Hottest? Hang on because Notre Dame may want to have a word. The Irish have shed themselves of the torment from the Northern Illinois loss. The 12-game winning streak since then is the longest in the country.

If defense wins championships, then Marcus Freeman has this thing figured out. The 62.5 rushing yards per game is the best in the playoff. Defensive coordinator Al Golden has allowed the two playoff opponents -- Indiana and Georgia -- only 61 plays each. The Irish have held the ball 56% of the time (67 out of 120 minutes). 

The Story: When the Irish lost 16-14 at home to Northern Illinois on Sept. 7, Notre Dame's odds of winning the national title ballooned to 100-1. Twelve wins later, including two by double digits in the playoffs, and they are listed at 7-1.

We shall see if quarterback Riley Leonard can be the difference offensively. Against Georgia, he passed for less than 100 yards but led the Irish in rushing. 

The Story: After a loss to Oregon in the Big Ten title game, Franklin's record against teams in the AP Top 10 dropped to 3-19. Oregon isn't playing anymore, Ohio State is and Franklin's record against the Buckeyes is 1-10.

Penn State has the most explosive running game in the playoff (more than 200 yards per game). Kaytron Allen and Nick Singleton are the first pair of 1,000-yard rushers for the Nittany Lions in the same season. Quarterback Drew Allar just completed his eighth career game with at least three touchdown passes and no interceptions. But Allar always seems to miss one or two wide open receivers per game. He's either still developing or that is an ongoing flaw in his game. That's not a good combination with ND leading the country allowing only 51% of opponent passes to be completed. PSU's All-American tight end Tyler Warren can go off at any time. In the playoff, he has 17 touches receiving, rushing and throwing for 102 yards and two touchdowns.

Hidden stat: Penn State lives in the opponent's backfield. Only two other Power Four programs have more tackles for loss. Penn State has 20 TFLs in 148 opponents' snaps in the postseason. 

The Story: The Longhorns are 0-2 against Georgia and don't have to worry about the Dawgs anymore. They are 13-0 against the rest of the country.

Quinn Ewers returns to his "roots" against Ohio State. It seems like a decade ago, but Texas' quarterback started with the Buckeyes after reclassifying to get out of high school a year early. He basically did it for an NIL bag. Ewers took only four snaps that freshman season. Now, he has become the face of Texas with an NFL-quality arm backed by an elite defense. Because of its lack of attention to detail, Texas allowed Arizona State to rally late to tie in Peach Bowl quarterfinal. The Longhorns arguably should have lost after a targeting penalty against Michael Taaffe wasn't called.

The Story: After punctuating a fourth straight loss to Michigan by standing on the field looking lost while the Wolverines triggered a melee by planting the team flag at the 50-yard line, there was good reason to think coach Ryan Day could only keep his job by somehow rallying to win a national title that felt unlikely.

Hidden stat: Ohio State is one win away from becoming the fourth team ever with four wins against top-five ranked teams in a season. The others are Notre Dame (1943), USC (1967) and LSU (2019).