By JOHN MOOREHOUSE
And then there were four.
The pursuit of the college football national championship is down to four teams: Indiana, Oregon, Ole Miss, and Miami.
Just like everyone expected going into the season, right?
We won’t have to wait long for the next round — the semifinals take place January 8 and 9 — and while the champion has yet to be crowned, there are some important takeaways from the quarterfinals. We take a look at some of them in this week’s installment of The Friday 5.
#1) The bye is almost meaningless.
This is year two in the current 12-team format, where the top four seeds get an automatic bye into the quarterfinals. In those two years, those top four seeds have a combined record in CFP games of 1-7. To be fair, those teams also have a layoff of about a month before the quarterfinals begin. That’s a long layoff while asking a team to remain sharp enough to play its biggest games of the season. Since the power brokers in college football have a willingness to tinker with the system whenever they want, I fully expect the field to expand to 16 to remove the bye altogether. Can’t wait for the debate next September for why a three-loss team from the SEC is superior to a three-loss team from the Big Ten, and why they’re all superior to an undefeated team from a Group of 5 conference.
#2) Indiana is legit.
It’s been said elsewhere, but it would be fun to go back to 2023 or so and tell people how Indiana was now the best college football team in the country and just beat Alabama by five touchdowns. The Hoosiers vs. Crimson Tide matchup in the Rose Bowl was the biggest blowout of the four-game round but still compelling because of which team was getting clobbered. Alabama teams just don’t lose that badly. The rise of Indiana has been rapid, but after what the Hoosiers have done, there’s no doubt they fully deserve the top seed in this bracket and are the favorites to win it all.
#3) Kalen DeBoer is already on the hot seat.
As mentioned earlier, Alabama is not the team that gets blown out. In fact, the Rose Bowl rout against Indiana was the most lopsided defeat for the Tide since 1998. That’s not going to make the boosters in Dixeland happy and the pressure on DeBoer is going to be intense going into 2026. Are the standards at Alabama unreasonable? Well, yeah. But they’re a product of what Nick Saban accomplished there. DeBoer, in two seasons in Tuscaloosa, now has eight losses. That’s as many defeats as Alabama tallied in the final five years of Saban’s tenure. In hindsight, what happened on New Year’s Day, and the way NIL and the transfer portal have worked to even the playing field across college football, Saban’s decision to leave makes a lot more sense, doesn’t it? Perhaps he realized Alabama could not continue to coast on its name and reputation.
#4) Trinidad Chambliss is a star.
Chambliss put on a real show in the Sugar Bowl as Ole Miss upset Georgia.
That’s video-game-level stuff right there. It’s wild to think that Chambliss may not have even gotten a chance to perform on this stage if Austin Simmons never got hurt. Seeing how Chambliss fares against a Miami team that has played lockdown defense through the first two rounds of the CFP might be the most intriguing matchup that awaits in the semifinals. Keep in mind that Chambliss was a little-known — albeit highly successful — quarterback at the Division II level prior to this season. Maybe, just maybe, the transfer portal is not all bad?
#5) Pete Golding already has tons of equity at Ole Miss.
With all the Lane Kiffin drama, and now the intrigue about whether the assistants who are following Kiffin to LSU will be able to remain at Ole Miss for however long the playoffs last, I don’t think there’s been enough attention paid to what Pete Golding has done. Golding stepped into games with the highest stakes possible and zero experience as a head coach, and he’s got the Rebels one win away from playing for the championship. Whereas DeBoer is going to face much more scrutiny going into 2026, after this run by the Rebels in the playoffs, Ole Miss fans could be much more forgiving if the Rebels take a step back next season.