TCU will face Georgia in the national championship game.Source: FOX SPORTSThe Horned Frogs dominated the first half, going up 21-6, but victory did not come easily. Starting in the third quarter, the game turned into a roaring festival of points, with TCU successfully holding at bay comeback attempt after comeback attempt by Michigan via its own offensive prowess and the brilliance of quarterback Max Duggan. All hell broke loose, over and over.
Michigan (13-1) pulled within 41-38 two plays into the fourth quarter after Emari Demercado’s fumble set up a Roman Wilson score and a Ronnie Bell two-point conversion. The Horned Frogs punched right back, though, with Quinton Johnson taking a crossing route 76 yards to the house to extend the lead to 10.
The Horned Frogs’ lead got back to 13, after another TCU field goal, before Michigan mounted its last scrambling attempt at a comeback. J.J. McCarthy led the Wolverines on a nine-play, 56-yard drive, ending in a Wilson touchdown, to bring the score to 51-45.
TCU got the ball back needing to kill the clock, and ended up doing so successfully, with Duggan converting on third-and-one at the Horned Frogs’ 20-yard line to force the Wolverines to use up their three timeouts before they got the ball back with 52 seconds to go at their own 25.
McCarthy, so brilliant in getting Michigan back with a chance, fell short, as the Wolverines failed to pick up a first down.
A pair of McCarthy throws to Bell brought Michigan back into the game at the start of the third quarter. First, McCarthy found Bell on a corner route for 43 yards, setting up a field goal to cut TCU’s lead to 21-9. Then, following a Mike Sainristil interception, McCarthy hit Bell on a flea-flicker for a 34-yard touchdown. Suddenly, after looking dead in the water in the first half, Michigan was within one score before the six-minute mark of the third quarter. It was game on.
From there, TCU scored 20 more points in the third quarter and Michigan scored nine, fighting back multiple times when the game looked over. Finally, as the page was about to turn to the fourth quarter, Michigan recovered a TCU fumble to set up a chance to get within a score — and everyone in the vicinity took the chance to breathe.
Fifteen minutes of game clock later, it was the Horned Frogs breathing a little lighter, their mettle confirmed.
Michigan came in as a heavy favourite, the conventional wisdom being that the better-tested Wolverines could use their physical run game to push around TCU. Despite that perceived physical edge, it was Michigan that was pushed around all game long.
TCU looked more prepared, better-coached and more ready for the moment. And Michigan had little answer for the Horned Frogs’ physicality.
In one year of coaching TCU, Sonny Dykes might already have elevated himself to program lore alongside Gary Patterson, who spent 20 years building the Horned Frogs up before he was fired in the middle of last season. At the time, it looked like the program was going stale. The Horned Frogs finished last season 5-7 and missed a bowl for the third straight year.
Even this season, as they started to rack up wins, it was easy to overlook a team that seemed to rely on comebacks and scored few emphatic victories against a difficult but not exactly top-heavy Big 12 conference.
No one, though, will look past TCU anymore.
As for the second semi-final, it was all about Ohio State’s offensive power – and whether Georgia had the weapons to match them.
Likely top-10 NFL draft pick CJ Stroud led the Buckeyes offence as they jumped to a 21-7 lead, which soon evaporated in a rollercoaster affair.
Yet after Georgia scored 17 unanswered points, Ohio State and all-world receiver Marvin Harrison junior (the son of the NFL and Colts great) got back to work, with their own 17 unanswered points.
After being forced into a field goal the Bulldogs got the ball back with 8:51 left in the game, down 38-27, and when the Buckeyes defender slipped Arian Smith was left wide open deep down the sideline for a remarkable 76-yard touchdown. Ladd McConkey caught a pass for the two-point conversion and a 38-35 score.
Trying to run down the clock, the Buckeyes got some juice out of Stroud’s legs – which they hadn’t done all season – with a scramble to avoid an early-down sack and then a 17-yard dash.
Later in the drive a big sack on a slow-developing play in the redzone cost the Buckeyes 12 yards, and they were forced into a 48-yard field goal for a 41-35 lead with 2:43 left.
But Stetson Bennett and the Bulldogs offence got going, moving quickly down the field and into the redzone – and Bennett found AD Mitchell from 10 yards out with a minute left. The point-after gave Georgia a 42-41 lead with 0:43 remaining.
But it was again Stroud’s legs saving the day for Ohio State, with a huge 27-yard scramble getting them into field goal range.
The Buckeyes were helped by the Bulldogs seemingly giving them free timeouts after every play because their players kept going down hurt and/or cramping.
In the end kicker Noah Ruggles hooked it literally in the final seconds of 2022 – and as 2023 began, Georgia fans were celebrating.
Portions of this article were originally published at the New York Post and republished with permission.
