College Football 5th Quarter: New Year’s Six recap, Championship preview

The New Year’s Six Bowls are over and the College Football Playoff Championship Game is set. Here are my five takeaways from New Year’s week.

College football fans have been waiting for more competitive bowl games as there have been a frenzy of blowouts this bowl season. They didn’t get too many close games in the New Year’s Six or the lead up to the College Football Playoff. The Cotton Bowl was a blowout with Ohio State dominating USC, Penn State and Wisconsin both had strong but competitive wins against Washington and Miami respectively. Then came the College Football Playoff.

The Rose Bowl went very long and ran into the start of the Sugar bowl. That’s because it went into double overtime and was just another in a long line of spectacular Rose Bowl games. Pasadena, CA has been the home of a few classics in my lifetime with stars like Charles Woodson, Vince Young, Sam Darnold and now Sony Michel showing up big at the Grandaddy of ’em all.

The Sugar Bowl wasn’t quite as epic as the Rose, with Alabama beating the Bulldogs 24-6. The Crimson Tide used a stifling defense that created turnovers and scored on an interception return for a touchdown to end Clemson’s chance at a repeat and their third straight CFP National Championship game appearance. Instead, Bama will make their third straight trip to the National Championship game and Nick Saban will have a shot at his sixth national title.

We’re all looking forward to the College Football Playoff’s National Title game in Atlanta on Monday, January 8, 2018. Here are my five takeaways from the New Year’s Six week of games.