The College Football Playoff (CFP) is a postseason tournament that decides who the National Champion is in Division I NCAA Football. Since 2014, four Division I teams have been invited to the College Football Playoff and they are ranked one through four. A 13-member board selects and ranks the four teams to take part in the CFP. In the semi-final round, the #1 seed faces the #4 seed and the #2 seed faces the #3 seed.
In the 2020-2021season, the four college football teams selected were Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State and Notre Dame. Alabama (#1) and Notre Dame (#4) faced each other first in the Rose Bowl. The Rose Bowl is normally held in the Los Angeles suburb of Pasadena, California but due to COVID-19, the game was moved to AT&T stadium in Arlington Texas. AT&T stadium was permitted to allow limited capacity to watch the Rose Bowl and attendance was 18,000 people on gameday. Alabama came into the game as a heavy favorite and they did not disappoint. Alabama went on to win the Rose Bowl 31-14 and moved on to the College Football Playoff National Championship.
The second semi-final game was between Clemson (#2) and Ohio State (#3) in the Sugar Bowl. The Sugar Bowl was played at the Mercedes Benz Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. Only 3,000 fans were allowed to watch the game in person and the crowd was made up of mostly friends and family of the players. The Sugar Bowl was set up as a great matchup as both teams had top quarterbacks in College Football. Both players will be drafted in the 1st round in the 2021 NFL draft. Clemson and their top notch quarterback Trevor Lawrence, came into the Sugar Bowl as the favored team but the game did not turn out the way they had hoped. Ohio State and their quarterback Justin Fields, ended up winning the game by a large margin of 21 points. This was a shocking result to many people as most people were expecting Trevor Lawrence, the #1 ranked player in College Football, to put up an impressive performance. Justin Fields ended up stealing Trevor Lawrence’s spotlight, leading to a Ohio State win.
The College Football National Championship game was played ten days later on January 11th. The #1 seed Alabama was set to play the #3 team Ohio State for the National Championship. The game was held in Miami Gardens, Florida at the Hard Rock Stadium where the Miami Dolphins normally play and where the Superbowl was held last winter. 14,926 people were in attendance and these people were excited to see the much anticipated matchup against these two teams that went undefeated during the entire season. Alabama finished the regular season 11-0 and Ohio State finished their season 6-0. Both teams also had star players. Ohio State had quarterback Justin Fields and Alabama had wide receiver Devonta Smith.
Alabama was expected to beat Ohio State by a pretty large margin and they did just that. Alabama ended up winning the game 52-24 and now Alabama has claimed the National Championship Title 18 times. This was also Alabama’s third time winning the National Championship game in the last seven years alone.The College Football Playoffs is something College Football fans look forward to all year because it is awesome to see the best teams in the country play each other. This year’s College Football Playoff Tournament did not disappoint and it was great that there were no cancelations in a year with many obstacles.