Snow in Dallas and a chill in Miami did little to cool down the semi-final matchups in the Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl as fans were treated to two hard-fought thrillers that came down to the wire.

***

ORANGE BOWL
Notre Dame 27 @ Penn State 24

Penn State QB Drew Allar tried to throw the ball away in the dying moments and ended up throwing away the Nittany Lions’ place in the National Championship. In the dying moments of the second half, after forcing Notre Dame to punt and regaining possession in a tied game, Allar stepped up to throw and tried to put it at the feet of his receiver as the pass rush smothered him.

“Honestly, I was trying to ‘dirt’ it at his feet,” Allar said later. Notre Dame cornerback Christian Gray saw a chance to make a play and dove on the ball, getting his hands underneath before it touched turf, swinging the pendulum in favour of the Irish and giving them the chance to steal the victory with just over 30 seconds left. Mitch Jeter’s 41-yard kick sailed through the posts as time expired and gold confetti rained down in AT&T Stadium.

“We found a way to make a play when it mattered the most,” head coach Marcus Freeman said. “In my opinion, great teams, great programmes, find a way to do that.”

Play-making defense has been the calling card of the Irish this season. Their penchant for big plays saw them overcome Georgia in the previous round and now booked them a place in their first title game since 2008, with a shot at a first championship since 1988.

Freeman will also be making history as the first black head coach to contend a National Championship game, as well as the first coach of Asian descent to reach the big game.

Penn State dominated the line of scrimmage early on, keeping star running back Jeremiyah Love in check and allowing the Nittany Lions to jump out to a 10-point lead. Nick Singleton’s touchdown run and a field goal appeared to have given them a decent cushion heading into the half, but Notre Dame’s offense, which had been shut down and shut out for almost the entirety of the first half, found a spark when backup QB Steve Angeli briefly stepped into the fray. Angeli drove the Irish 44 yards down the field with a series of short, accurate passes and, whilst he couldn’t find the endzone, the drive set them up for a field goal and points on the board before the interval.

Riley Leonard, back under center after the brief injury scare that forced Angeli into rare action, used his legs to put the Irish level at the beginning of the second half, but Penn State fought back. Singleton was proving a force to be reckoned with, accounting for all three of Penn State’s touchdowns, the second of which tied the game after Jeremiyah Love’s monstrous three-yard effort — which saw him find paydirt despite having three defenders draped over him — added to Leonard’s opening score to give Notre Dame the lead at 17-10. A quick turnover later and Singleton scored again, although the Nittany Lions appeared to have most of the luck on their side, with two Allar interceptions being negated by penalties that allowed Penn State to keep possession.

Holding the lead with just over four minutes left in the fourth, the Big 10 runners-up just needed to hold the Irish offense in check, and were Jaden Greathouse capitalised on a defensive back’s slip on third-and-three, pulling in Leonard’s pass and galloping 54-yards through mostly open space for the score to tie the game.

A late Leonard interception then appeared to put Penn State in prime position, but it was not to be as Gray and Jeter combined to break Nittany Lions hearts.

***

COTTON BOWL
Texas 14 @ Ohio State 28

Quinn Ewers saw a spot in the National Championship game literally slip through his fingers as his fumble was returned 84 yards by Jack Sawyer, his former room-mate and the man who had sacked him and jarred the ball loose. Sawyer’s return was the longest in CFP history and ensured that his name will be remembered forever in Columbus.

Texas had been knocking on the door of the endzone late in the fourth for what felt like forever, the drive extended by two pass interference penalties in the endzone that kept the Longhorns’ hopes of a game-tying score alive. Those hopes were dampened, however, when Quintrevion Wisner was tackled for a seven-yard loss, before finally being crushed by Sawyer.

Ohio State took control early on with a nine-yard touchdown run from Quinshon Judkins and it briefly looked as though the game could go the same way as the Rose Bowl clash with Oregon. However, Texas fought back and tied it up just before the half with Jaydon Blue pulling in an 18-yard pass for the TD on a drive that saw an Arch Manning cameo with an eight-yard run to convert on fourth-and-one.

The Longhorns elation was short-lived as Ohio State also utilised a running back for a passing score. Treveyon Henderson’s 75-yard catch and run on the first play of the following drive instantly nullifying Texas’ score and giving the advantage back to the Buckeyes as they entered the break.

The third quarter looked like it would remain scoreless until Blue’s second touchdown catch for 18-yards brought the Longhorns level on what would be their last score of the game. A second Judkins score put the Buckeyes back in front at the end of a gutsy drive characterised by QB Will Howard’s 18-yard run on fourth-and-two. The play could easily have gone for a touchdown had Howard not been gobbled up by the turf monster, prompting the quarterback to joke that he ‘fell on purpose’.

“I’m joking,” he clarified, before adding “That fourth down was huge. It was a statement drive. We needed that.”

There is now a belief in this Ohio State team that seemed entirely absent when they lost to Michigan in the final game of the regular season. Head coach Ryan Day, a man who many thought could be out the door after a fourth straight loss to the Wolverines, is now knocking on the door of the Buckeyes’ first National Championship title since victory in the inaugural CFP championship game in 2014.

“There’s some guys on this team today that I believe will become legends in Ohio State history,” Day noted. “Now they get 10 more days together, and an opportunity to tell their story if they go win one more.”

Day will hope that, in ten days’ time, he will be able to re-write his story, from being referred to as a coach known for choking in the big games to an Ohio State legend that led his team to the top.

***

The College Football Playoff final is scheduled for Monday, January 20^th at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.