For the second consecutive season, the CFP delivered a pair of spectacular semifinal games. Here are some winners and losers from Alabama-Michigan and Texas-Washington.

Loser: Collective Heart Rates 

For the first eight iterations of the College Football Playoff, the semi finals were mostly made up of blowouts. From 2015-22, the average margin of victory for a semi final winner was 21 points. While there were some instant classics – think of the Georgia-Oklahoma double-OT shootout in 2018, for example – most semi final games weren’t very competitive. 

Then, last season saw the semis produce two incredible games. TCU stunned Michigan 51-45, and Georgia survived Ohio State 42-41, as OSU’s Noah Ruggles saw his potential game-winning kick sail wide left and hit the ground just as the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve. Fans of the sport couldn’t have asked for much more than two games between elite teams that came down to the wire. 

Somehow, they got more with the 2024 playoff. 

The final iteration of the four-team CFP saw (puts on body armor for protection) the four best teams in the sport (endures thousands of verbal arrows from Florida State and Georgia fans) play in two games that didn’t just come down to the wire…both came down to the very last snap. Also, both games were competitive and entertaining throughout, as neither of the four teams ever held a lead greater than 13. On the game’s biggest stages, the drama was at its highest. Despite not having any stake in either of the games, I was even nervous towards the end of both games. 

For Michigan, the close contest saw them enter relatively uncharted waters, as it was just their third win of one possession all season. On the other hand, Washington seems to have an upper hand in tight games. All season long, the Huskies have been connoisseurs in the clutch, and they showed up again on Monday. UW’s victory over Texas marked their eighth one-possession win of the season. 

While this might be hindsight bias, I’m not sure that we should’ve doubted Washington as much as we should’ve when Texas was driving late. Not only were they 7-0 in one-possession games, they’ve been forged in the chaos of Pac-12/10/8 After Dark for decades.

Should Monday’s national championship see a close game late in the fourth quarter, I have little doubt that UW will know how to handle themselves. 

Winner: New blood

Yes, Michigan has been amongst college football’s elite for most of the sport’s history, and Washington has made a home in the “pretty good” tier. But the two teams have just one national championship apiece, with UM’s coming in 1997 and UW’s coming in 1991. 

This will also be the first national title game since the inaugural CFP (Ohio State-Oregon) and just the second since 2006 to not feature at least one SEC team. 

Winner: Washington 

You might be reading this and thinking to yourself “yeah, no (bad word), of course Washington won”. To that, I say hold your horses, smartie pants. That’s not what I meant. 

Throughout the sport’s recent history, Washington has made a home in the “pretty good” tier. Since 1977, they’ve only had seven losing seasons, and six of them happened consecutively from 2004-09. From 1977-2000, they had a handful of awesome seasons, as they made seven Rose Bowl’s and one Orange Bowl and compiled a record of 6-2 in those games. In 1991, they went 12-0 and claimed the school’s first and only national championship.

Here’s the problem: there were plenty of seasons that saw the Huskies on the precipice of a championship, only for them to fall short. They’d be ranked somewhere in the top-six in the AP/CFP poll, then would fall to an inferior opponent at some point late in the season to dash any hopes of a national title. 

10/3/1979: (6) Washington 7, Arizona State 12 

10/30/1982: (2) Washington 31, Stanford 43

11/10/1984: (1) Washington 7, (14) USC 16

11/10/1990: UCLA 25, (2) Washington 22

11/7/1992: (1) Washington 3, (12) Arizona 16

11/8/1997: (6) Washington 28, Oregon 31

10/14/2017: (5) Washington 7, Arizona State 13

The season they’ve come the closest to a national title since 1991 was 2016, when they won the Pac-12 and captured a No. 4 ranking. Unfortunately, the Huskies were dominated by top-ranked Alabama.

This is also the first time UW will actually compete in a de facto national championship. In 1991 (a.k.a pre-BCS), voters for the AP poll, coaches poll and Football Writers Association of America (FWAA) poll would vote for a national champion after all of the bowl games were complete. That season, undefeated Washington won the Rose Bowl, while undefeated Miami (FL) won the Orange Bowl. The Hurricanes finished first in the AP poll, while the Huskies were atop the coaches and FWAA poll. 

On Monday, Washington will have a chance to make history. For the first time, the University of Washington can stand alone atop Mount College Football.

Winner: Elijah Jackson

In the final minute, Washington was melting down. A game that seemed all but over suddenly became far from it. A kick-catch interference on the punt gave Texas 15 free yards. A 41-yard rainbow from Quinn Ewers to a twisting Jordan Whittington put the Longhorns inside of UW’s 30-yard line. A 16-yard fade to Jaydon Blue, who made a Willie Mays-ian effort to snare the pass, had UT on the doorstep. After a few plays that went nowhere, one second remained. The Huskies needed someone to step up and make a play if they wanted to avert a season-ending disaster. 

Ewers had Adonai Mitchell. He totally had him. Mitchell wasn’t wide open, but a back shoulder bullet from Ewers would’ve likely given Mitchell a good chance to reel in a game-winning touchdown. Instead, Ewers lofted a prayer high in the sky. The logic made sense: the 6’4” Mitchell is elite at high-pointing jump-balls. Besides, he’d already come down with one earlier in the quarter for a touchdown. 

Unfortunately, Mitchell was turned the other way when Ewers released the ball. Since Mitchell had to quickly flip his hips towards the sideline, he couldn’t take flight and instead had to resort to a toe-tap. Even with the suboptimal audible in how to attack the ball, Mitchell’s length still gave him a solid shot at replicating Santonio Holmes’ game-winner from Super Bowl XLIII. 

Elijah Jackson had other ideas. 

That wasn’t a pass breakup. That was a HOW DO YOU DO, SCREW YOUR COMEBACK, LET’S GO TO HOUSTON pass breakup. He soared in without an ounce of fear and swatted away the pass like prime Shaquille O’Neal. 

In those moments, it doesn’t matter how many stars you had coming out of high school, where you are on the depth chart or how well you played that game. It’s never the best players that win games; it’s whoever plays the best. 

Jackson certainly fits the mold. He was a three-star recruit coming out of high school and played in just three games over his first two seasons with the program. This season, Jackson wasn’t Washington’s CB1, doesn’t have an interception and has fewer passes defended than four of his teammates. But the reason he’ll forever be a Washington football legend is because he made a play when his team needed him the most. 

“Every guy on the field wanted to get the last play, you know what I mean?” Jackson said. “They wanted to put it on them. That’s the type of culture we have. It’s contagious. Everybody wants to make the game-winning play. Everybody wants to be that guy. I just felt like it was my turn. I saw it go up, and I knew it was all or nothing, so I had to make the play. There was no choice.”

Winner: Washington’s NFL Draft prospects

Playing on a national stage is especially helpful for players hoping to hear their name called in the following draft. DeVonta Smith, Justin Jefferson and Ezekiel Elliott all cemented elite draft status with incredible performances in the CFP.

While no one on Washington looks to be of the same caliber prospect the aforementioned three were, they certainly had a handful of players who shined under the spotlight. It’s especially helpful for a squad who’s played most of their games when half of the country was asleep. 

The most notable was UW quarterback and Heisman trophy runner-up Michael Penix Jr., who was throwing frozen ropes all night en route to 430 passing yards (second-most in CFP history behind Joe Burrow) and two touchdowns without a turnover. How much you care about his four season-ending injuries is up to you; the fact of the matter is that Penix looked like a complete QB once again against Texas. Pocket presence, patience, you name the trait, Penix probably showed it off.

UW’s big three at wide receiver – Rome Odunze (6-125), Jalen McMillan (5-58-1) and Ja’Lynn Polk (5-122-1) – all had productive games. Odunze is currently rated as a first-rounder, while McMillan and Polk are projected to be taken in the middle rounds. 

Finally, linebacker Bralen Trice, who’s widely regarded as a Day 2 pick, had three tackles for loss and two sacks. 

Loser: Ball control

Sometimes, even the best athletes struggle with simple procedures, and it showed up a lot on Monday. 

Texas-Washington had a few ball control gaffes. UW’s Germie Bernard muffed a punt; Texas recovered and scored a touchdown three plays later. On the other side, the Longhorns lost two fumbles of their own, both of which came in the second half. 

However, that was nothing compared to Alabama-Michigan. There were three combined muffed punts between the two teams, the last of which being inches away from a game-ending safety. Somehow, UM return man Jake Thaw calmly scooped up his fumble right outside of his own goal-line and hung onto it despite getting blasted immediately after picking it up. He was literally inches away from being the main character of the worst play in Michigan football history (yes, worse than the botched punt years ago against Michigan State), but Thaw saved himself at the last moment.

Michigan also tried a couple of trick plays, both of which nearly ended in disaster. Late in the second quarter, JJ McCarthy pitched the ball to Donovan Edwards, who threw the ball back to McCarthy across the field. The only problem was that the pass was too high, and Chris Braswell was beelinging towards him. Somehow, McCarthy not only reeled in the pass with one hand, but threw a perfect pass to Roman Wilson while getting drilled by Braswell for a first down. 

Later in the game, the Wolverines weren’t as lucky. On an attempted flea flicker, Alabama linebacker Deontae Lawson shot right into the backfield, forcing Blake Corum to pitch the ball back to McCarthy quicker than he thought. The pitch came up short, and McCarthy had to fall on the ball.

But wait! There’s more. Earlier in the game, Michigan failed an extra point try because the snap went right through the hands of the holder. Later in the game, with a chance to pull within one, UM kicker James Turner missed a 49-yard field goal in part because of a bad snap. 

Alabama also struggled mightily hanging onto the ball. On the drive prior to the missed kick by Turner, Jalen Milroe fumbled. 

But that was far from the worst ball control failure for the Tide. 

Loser: Everything about Alabama’s last play

At first, I was flabbergasted. Jalen Milroe running straight into a wall could not possibly have been Alabama’s play call with their season on the line…right? I understood that the timeout ping pong between the two teams forced Tommy Rees to call several different plays, but there had to have been a better one that, uh, that.

Thankfully, after watching the play back a few times, it turns out that the play call was way better than the execution. SB Nation’s Joseph Acosta aptly broke down the intended result:

It’s an RPO with a swing to the back attached to QB Power. If QB Jalen Milroe doesn’t think he has the box count to run it, he has the number advantage on the swing pass. Michigan had beaten Alabama a lot with their blitzes and sending pressure all game, so this was an easy way to force their hand.

One of the reasons I couldn’t believe what I’d seen was that it seemed like Rees was shoehorning his offense into one potential outcome. The perceived play call of just QB Power looked like an all-or-nothing play; the fact that there weren’t any failsafes was mind-boggling. However, I was wrong. There were other options, it’s just that the bad snap and poor blocking thwarted the play and helped send Michigan to the national title game. 

Winner: Michigan’s front seven

10 tackles for loss, six sacks, 18% havoc rate according to gameonpaper.com. That’s a recipe for success. 

Winner: Rece Davis 

If you didn’t see why Davis can be considered a winner, read here. It’s worth your time.