CFP Quarterfinals Filled With Intrigue. Now It's Up To Boise State, Arizona State To Prove Folks Wrong

COLUMBUS, Ohio - There was nothing about the first round of the college football playoff that was exciting, except the fact that we got to see four games take place on campuses around the sport. 

I don't think the committee thought that the four games that took place over the past two days would end up with games that ended in blowouts. But, at the end of the day, the better teams won, just like you normally see in the NCAA basketball tournament. The higher seeds were just better. 

Whether it was in South Bend or Columbus, there was nothing about Saturday that the CFP could hang their hat on, in terms of entertaining content. But, that's most likely about to change as we head into the quarterfinals around New Year's Day. 

If you were paying attention to the Buckeyes dominant win over Tennessee, I'm sure you were wondering where this type of offensive output was against Michigan. On paper, the Vols defense was better than the Wolverines for the entire season, but Ohio State made them look like a squad that was lost for sixty minutes in the 42-17 win. 

Let me be clear: Tennessee, SMU, Clemson and Indiana deserved to be in the college football playoff. Yes, they did not perform on the road to make it interesting enough for fans to keep the channel tuned to ABC or TNT. But that doesn't mean they didn’t belong. 

The on-campus College Football Playoff games didn’t deliver on the scoreboard, but certainly in the stadium. Via: Trey Wallace

Once again, the better teams won, it's that simple. But yes, when the game in Columbus is 21-0 in the first quarter, you certainly start to reevaluate things, or second guess. Should Alabama have been in? The Tide' shouldn’t have been destroyed by Oklahoma in late November. 

But lost in all the madness of performances on Saturday is an upcoming round of games that has the chance to deliver where the first weekend didn’t. 

CFP Quarterfinals: Georgia vs. Notre Dame, Oregon vs. OSU Headline

One of the benefits, for the fans and players of teams still hanging around, is the upcoming matchups that involve some blue-bloods of the sport right now. 

After the first game ended with Will Howard sliding with no time left on the clock, a rematch between Oregon and Ohio State is set for the Rose Bowl. In all honesty, playing THAT game, in THAT venue, will be worth watching, with two teams worthy of being in that spot. Sure, I would rather see this game in the semifinals, or even the championship game, but this is the growing curve of the CFP. 

How about the Sugar Bowl? I think we all remember the two games between Notre Dame and Georgia that started a few years ago. I know you remember Georgia fans invading South Bend. But now, we get these two in New Orleans for a spot in the semifinals. Now, this one is going to be interesting, with Bulldogs QB Carson Beck missing the game with a UCL injury, but Gunner Stockton is good enough to force the Irish to start worrying now. 

It's the other two games that will define the playoff committee, and how they seed teams. After the ACC got popped in the mouth by Texas and Penn State, we're now on a collision course for two matchups that will certainly have folks tuning in, looking to see if the ‘underdog’ can pull one out on the big stage. 

After beating Clemson on Saturday, the Texas Longhorns are headed back to Atlanta, a place they just left two weeks ago after playing for an SEC Championship. Standing in their way is No. 4 seed Arizona State, who will look to prove folks right when it comes to getting a first-round bye. Who knows how the Peach Bowl will play out, but it's damn sure intriguing to see if Kenny Dillingham can lead the Sun Devils to a win over Steve Sarkisian and the Longhorns. 

But, it's the Fiesta Bowl that has me ready to tune in. After destroying SMU on Saturday, Penn State heads west to Arizona to play Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl. Yes, this is one of those ‘David vs. Goliath’ type of games, if not from a ‘name’ standpoint alone. And trust me, James Franklin will be feeling the heat if his Nittany Lions are beaten by the Broncos. 

For all the fans out there that are tired of hearing about the Big Ten and SEC, I'm sure they’ll be rooting for chaos, hoping that the semifinals aren’t filled with teams from either conference. 

On-Campus Games Delivered Pageantry, Just Not Competitive Games

Yea, I understand the frustration of sitting around on your couch all day, hoping that you at least get two good games out of the four played. Unfortunately, the executives at TNT have to be sick tonight knowing how much they paid to license two of Saturday's games that turned into a cluster of rough football. 

Thankfully for them, Clemson decided to make it a game in the early part of the fourth quarter, but besides that, it was a wash. 

But I don't want the atmosphere from Friday and Saturday to get lost in the final scores, because if you were watching from home, I'd imagine it was a pretty cool sight to see. In Columbus, yes, Tennessee fans ‘invaded’ the ‘Shoe’ to watch their Vols take the field, even though it didn't take long to get ugly. But even with the final score, the scene at Ohio State was astonishing, seeing over 25,000 fans clad in orange sitting in the stands. 

And yes, there were that many opposing fans in the stand, judging by the comments from administrators at Ohio State. 

"That's the most fans from a visiting team I've ever seen here for a football game," one OSU official mentioned to OutKick. "Kudos to them, they traveled extremely well. Think about what it would’ve looked like if Tennessee fans hadn’t traveled that well. There would've been a lot of empty seats on national television."

The on-campus College Football Playoff games didn’t deliver on the scoreboard, but certainly in the stadium. Via: Trey Wallace

At Notre Dame, it was a spectacle on Friday night. In Texas, you can feel the emotion pouring through the television, while Penn State faithful showed up even with prices through the roof for a one-night hotel stay. 

While there are obviously things to fix moving forward, and the demand for two of the games on the secondary ticket market was pretty rough, it still provided a perfect backdrop for college football this weekend. 

Now, we're headed on the road to neutral site venues that will lack the same feel, and I would imagine there will be a lot of tickets for sale at some of these games due to fans not wanting to spend that much money after Christmas. 

But at the end of the night, as workers started to clean up the ‘Shoe’ in Columbus, it was a great decision to have these games on-campus. Sure, the games lacked excitement for the viewers at home, but that was something I look forward to covering once again next season. 

Bring on the CFP Quarterfinals, and let's hope we have a reason to keep the games on in the final few minutes.