The object of the game is to win. Hell, this is college football. If you go undefeated, there’s historical precedent for you just deciding you won a national championship. It happens all the time. In a weird year like this, with abbreviated schedules and chaos and teams driving across the country to play games on three days notice and a playoff structure that leaves half the teams out by policy, you couldn’t have argued with a non-power team that decided, hey, we beat everyone we played, we were champions.
Except there are only two undefeated teams left in all of the FBS, and they’re traditional powers who play next week for the championship. The one championship.
That’s not to say the seasons had by Cincinnati, Coastal Carolina, Louisiana, San Jose State, BYU and, I guess, Liberty weren’t great. They just weren’t national championship years. Maybe next year.
Games That Happened
Thursday
Ball State 34, San Jose State 13
The Cardinals weren’t really the talk of the MAC for much of the year but emerged with a MAC title and their first-ever bowl win. In doing so they prevented SJSU from going unbeaten. How this game played out, boy howdy. Ball State scored four touchdowns in the first quarter, an interception return for a touchdown by Antonio Phillips and short rushing touchdowns by Will Jones, Tye Evans and Drew Plitt. Plitt threw a 48-yard touchdown pass in the third quarter to Yo’Heinz Tyler to put Ball State up 34-0. SJSU’s garbage time redemption started on the ensuing kickoff, run back for a touchdown by Charlie Bostic, and then Nick Starkel got on the stat sheet with a touchdown pass to Jermaine Braddock as the game was damn near over.
West Virginia 24, Army 21
Army got three touchdown runs from Tyhier Tyler but West Virginia mounted a comeback to take the lead with five minutes left and Army’s attempts to answer ended with a missed field goal and an interception. Here’s a quirk of Army football: Christian Anderson hadn’t missed a pass until that last drive, when he threw an incompletion and then the pick on fourth down. Half of his pass attempts came on that drive.
Mississippi State 28, Tulsa 26
You’re telling me the Armed Forces Bowl devolved into gratuitous violence?
Two things resulted from this: First, a lot of people made references to that famous line from Dr. Strangelove. Second, people debated whose fault the brawl was. Every brawl is everybody’s fault. This is a game where people hit each other and walk away dozens of times a day. That said, the guy from Mississippi State who was kicking a guy? That ain’t right.
Oh, yeah, there was a football game.
Mississippi State got a 90-yard interception return for a touchdown in the third quarter that gave them an eight point lead, Tulsa responded with a touchdown run from Corey Taylor but failed to get the two-point conversion, and that proved to be the difference in the game.
Friday
Georgia 24, Cincinnati 21
Georgia, playing their usual home game during bowl season, got a solid performance from J.T. Daniels and a furious fourth-quarter comeback to end Cincinnati’s undefeated season. Desmond Ridder threw two touchdown passes and Jerome Ford had one big run for the Bearcats, who struggled to put together a rushing attack in the absence of Gerrid Doaks. UGA kicked a 53-yard field goal with three seconds left to take a one-point lead, and Ridder was sacked for a safety during the last desperation play to settle the final margin.
At one point Cincinnati was up 21-10, but they couldn’t put the Bulldogs away. A lot of that can be blamed on the running game. Cincy managed 99 yards, but 79 of those came on Ford’s touchdown run a couple plays into the third quarter. Sure, Georgia only had 45 rushing yards, but they nearly doubled the Bearcats’ passing total. Georgia’s defensive front played a hell of a game, racking up eight sacks, drawing several key false start penalties with a nerve-wracking lateral shift, all-in-all getting in Ridder’s face and blowing up plays behind the line of scrimmage. Late in the game, it seemed like every time Cincinnati ran a play they went backwards. If they got within five yards of the first down marker, a penalty knocked them back. It was rough. You wonder what this game would’ve looked like with Doaks playing, but it’s also not like Georgia had all their players.
In any case, Cincinnati deserved to be there. Any number of plays could’ve spurred them to a win. But it doesn’t always work out.
And as for the people who thought, well, Cincinnati lost this game, so that’ll hurt their chances of getting into the playoff if they have another undefeated season next year, I simply disagree. No matter what Cincinnati does next year, those chances are still zero. At least with the way the committee currently makes decisions. This was just a football game between a team that has lost every chance it’s ever had at a title in the last 40 years and one that has never gotten one. The former won.