Each CFP semifinalist is eyeing the long-awaited national title

Redemption. Retribution. Revenge.

Whichever of those words you revere the most, they all relate as the College Football Playoff rolls into the calculus that is this week’s semifinals — a quartet of stories that are wildly varied but, at their core, essentially the same .

The long-awaited expanded playoff, which began with a dozen teams, is down to four. Conspicuously absent from the remaining field are the teams that have dominated the CFP since its inception. Clemson and Georgia have been eliminated. Oregon, ranked no. 1 for large parts of the season, has also been sent home. Former champions Alabama and LSU, along with last year’s finalists Michigan and Washington, didn’t even make the field.

All of this has opened the door for these Final Four programs and given them a chance to turn around their long-standing reputations – in some cases, a very, very long time – with the big golden magic eraser just two wins from their hand.

Notre Dame vs. Penn State in the Orange Bowl. Ohio State vs. Texas in the Cotton Bowl. Two of these teams will advance and get a chance to ease their eternal pain. The other two enter another winter amid the familiar vicious cycle of icy doubt.

“I think a lot of the story in these games is going to center around the coaches, and that’s fine. We’re big boys; we can handle it,” said James Franklin, in his 11th season as Penn State’s head coach. but in his first CFP . “But to me, the real story is the opportunity we all have to reward these great universities and the people who have supported us through thick and thin. Bringing that championship feeling back to this city will make every step to achieve to that. worth it.”

There have been so many steps. But for those four programs, it seems every step of traction has inevitably been outnumbered and slowed by skids and trips on their most despised rivals.

“The same guys are in the room that were there a month ago,” Ohio State coach Ryan Day said late last week after his team’s revenge win over Oregon, a team it had lost to in October in Eugene. “Nothing that’s happened before or really the noise that’s (outside) the building has anything to do with our preparation and our focus and our process. That’s what we’ve delved into.

“We don’t need any extra motivation to win this game. One thing that motivates our team is an opportunity for the team to play another week together.”

The Buckeyes, with their much-ballyhooed NIL-powered roster, lost two games during the regular season, most glaringly The Game against Michigan, a rough 13-10 loss to the unranked Wolverines, their fourth straight rivalry loss, hence Day’s reference to “a month ago.” It’s been a decade since Ohio State celebrated its last national title, the program’s eighth, achieved in the very first edition of the CFP. Even now, after rallying to playoff wins over Tennessee and Oregon, a large swath of OSU social media is still angry with Day for his lack of Big Ten titles and wins against That Team Up North.

Ohio State faces Texas, the program that coined the phrase “We’re Back” for repeatedly losing that coin under the seat of its burnt orange pickup truck. The Longhorns spent some time this season, their first in the SEC, ranked No. 1 in the country. But they also lost the two biggest pre-CFP games they played, both against another part-time top seed in Georgia. Their final natty was earned in perhaps the greatest college football game of all time, ending the 2005 season by beating USC in the Rose Bowl. But it was nearly a decade before the playoffs existed, which was instead earned in the eighth edition of the BCS Championship Game.

“The history of what a place is and how it became what it is is the very reason you want to work here, but there’s a balance in using that past to push into the future rather than rest on your laurels,” said Steve Sarkisian , who is in his fourth year as coach in Austin but lived the same balance between past and prologue during stints at USC, Alabama and even during his time as a player at BYU.

“People ask me about the pressure from the fans, the people who have loved the University of Texas their whole lives, but for me it comes from doing justice to the names of the buildings and the statues and paintings you see of the coaches and players who were here before us, I say to our guys that we have a chance to be one of those people forever, but only if we take care of the here and now.

The entire Notre Dame campus feels like what Sark described: one giant football museum. Literally awakened echoes stand watch over every quad and every hallway. South Bend is undeniably one of the cornerstones of college football. The place of Knute Rockne, the Four Horsemen and a room full of Heisman trophies.

But while the Golden Dome history has always been its biggest asset, it’s also proven to be its heaviest anchor, constantly pointed to as the only reason the independent program is allowed to stay in the big room with the Power 4 – the conferences. Critics have screamed why else would a program that has been bounced out of two previous CFP appearances and blown out in its lone BCS title game visit (a 42-14 loss to Alabama in 2012) continue to get postseason- looks? The most recent of the school’s 11 national titles was won in January 1989, in the waning days of Ronald Reagan’s second term as president. This season’s 13-1 team has only one blemish, but it’s the equivalent of having a giant red pimple on the end of one’s nose, an inexplicable Week 2 home loss to Northern Illinois, which finished seventh in the 12-team MAC.

And no college football program has received more denial of honor than that of State College, Pennsylvania. Like Day, Franklin is routinely ripped by his fan base, unhappy with his record in big games. When the Nittany Lions defeated No. 8 Boise State in the CFP quarterfinals, Franklin’s mark against top-10 teams improved to 4-19. That record includes losses this season to Ohio State and Oregon, ranked No. 4 and no. 1 at that time.

But the misfortune in Happy Valley runs much deeper than just this season. The Nittany Lions have posted 13 undefeated seasons but only have two national titles to show for it, as Joe Paterno had five undefeated teams that were notoriously denied nattys by pollsters and politics. The 1994 squad had two Heisman finalists and 15 future NFL draft picks, won the Big Ten and stomped Oregon in the Rose Bowl, but in the pre-BCS era was voted second to Nebraska in both major polls. The school’s only two national titles also came during the Reagan presidency, won in 1982 and 1986.

For perspective, here are cell phones from the year of each CFP semifinalist’s last national title: Ohio State, 2014. Texas, 2005. Notre Dame, 1988. Penn State, 1986. pic.twitter.com/EgL96u7h7z

— Ryan McGee (@ESPNMcGee) 3 January 2025

Four proud brands. Four classic university towns. Four all-time powerhouse programs, all ranked among the seven winningest teams in the sport’s 155-year history. All finally with the possibility of renewal, revival, resurrection … whatever motivational word you choose. As long as it results in the release of suppressed party play January 20 in Atlanta.

“This job is like no other because of what it is, where it is, and I think the other three coaches will probably tell you the same thing about their jobs,” Marcus Freeman said in just his third full season as Notre Dame’s head coach. . He celebrated his first birthday the week after Penn State won its last national title and blew out three candles right after Notre Dame’s natty. He is also a former All-Big Ten linebacker at Ohio State who played against Penn State and Texas. “One of my favorite aspects of this job, and I think they’ll tell you the same, is the chance to educate people about the incredible history of this place. The chance to add to that history, to restore some of it and the pride of, to bring it, it is not a privilege.