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The College Football Playoff semifinals have arrived. We started with 12, and there are now just three teams remaining in the hunt for the national championship: five seed Texas, seven seed Notre Dame and eight seed Ohio State. The Fighting Irish got things started against Penn State in the Orange Bowl CFP semi on Thursday night, and Notre Dame got the win. The Buckeyes and Longhorns are following that up with a matchup on Friday in the Cotton Bowl CFP semi. This should be a good one, and the winner will meet Notre Dame on January 20th in the national title. Now, let's talk Cotton Bowl.
Ohio State is the clear national title favorite after the way that they have dominated through the first two rounds. The Buckeyes easily handled Tennessee at home in round one, and then they dismantled one seed Oregon in the Rose Bowl last week.
Everyone is picking the Buckeyes in this one, but don't count out Texas. They survived a scare against Arizona State in the quarterfinals, and that could've been the wake up call they needed.
Before we get talk more about this matchup, let's take a deeper look at both of these teams:
This will be Texas' toughest test yet
The Texas football team has two losses on the season, and they both came against Georgia. The Bulldogs beat the Longhorns in the regular season and they beat them again in the SEC title game. Georgia earned a bye in the CFP, but they lost to Notre Dame in the quarterfinals.
Texas' best win this year is against Clemson in the first-round of the playoff. They haven't played a team as good as Ohio State, and they certainly haven't beaten anyone as good as Ohio State. This is going to be an incredibly challenging test for the Longhorns and they will have to play mistake-free football to get a win.
The Longhorns have the talent to keep up with the Buckeyes, but the question is can they put it all together for 60 minutes? We saw Texas step up and make plays when they needed to against Arizona State, but they looked sluggish for much of the game, letting the Sun Devils hang around. Texas will need to play much better to beat the Buckeyes.
Ohio State looks unstoppable right now
The Ohio State football team has looked completely different since losing their regular season finale against Michigan. That loss to the Wolverines squashed two goals for the Buckeyes (beat Michigan and win the Big Ten), but winning the national title is still on the table. Ohio State is two wins away from that becoming a reality.
Ohio State was dominant in their first round win against Tennessee, but the Oregon game was the real wakeup call to the rest of the CFP. The Buckeyes lost to Oregon in the regular season, but this game was completely different. Halfway through the second quarter, Ohio State was up 34-0 and the game was essentially already over.
If Ohio State keeps playing like they did against Oregon, they are going to win the national championship. The Buckeyes are obviously going to continue to try to get the ball to Jeremiah Smith in this game, but he isn’t the X-factor for Ohio State. That player is…
Will Howard
Will Howard is the X-factor for the Ohio State football team in this game. The reason why is Texas is one of the few teams in the country that has the talent on defense to matchup with the Buckeyes on offense. Do they always execute to their full potential? No, but they have the athletes to make this interesting.
The key to the game for Texas is going to be getting pressure on Will Howard. If Howard has all day to throw and his NFL receivers have all day to get open, Texas doesn’t stand a chance. However, when Howard is pressured, he doesn’t handle it well and he struggles to play at an elite level. We saw it against Michigan. He threw two bad interceptions, threw for just 175 yards, and the Buckeyes only scored 10 points.
Texas has a lot of talent on defense, and if they execute a good game plan, they can generate pressure to disrupt Howard’s rhythm. If that does happen, Howard has to do a good job of handling it. Getting pressure is definitely the key for the Longhorns.
Ohio State and Texas will kick off the Cotton Bowl at 7:30 ET on Friday night from AT&T Stadium in Dallas, Texas, and the game will be airing on ESPN. The Buckeyes are currently favored by 5.5 points.
How we got to the CFP semis
From 12 to four, we made it to the College Football Playoff semis. All four of these teams started from the beginning as none of them had a bye, so let's take a quick look at how we got here.
Starting with five seed Texas, the Longhorns took down Clemson at home to start the College Football Playoff. The Longhorns won comfortably by two touchdowns to set up a showdown with Arizona State. The Sun Devils put up a great fight, but they weren't able to get it done as Texas got won it in overtime. Now, they essentially have a home game in the semis against Ohio State.
Six seed Penn State started the playoff with a blowout win against SMU at home. That one was never close, but the Nittany Lions got a good fight from Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl. A strong start and finish was the difference as Penn State won that one 31-14. Unfortunately for the Nittany Lions, their run ended in the semis.
Up next is seven seed Notre Dame, and they also started the playoff out at home. The Fighting Irish easily took care of business against Indiana, and they upset two seed Georgia in the Sugar Bowl to punch their ticket to the semis where they beat Penn State.
Dominant eight seed Ohio State started things off with an easy home win against Tennessee, and then the Buckeyes got revenge on Oregon in the Rose Bowl with another convincing win. Ohio State is the favorite to win it all.
The playoff really only had one real close game before the semis, but the Orange Bowl definitely delivered. Will the Cotton Bowl do the same?
