by With the end of College Football Quarterfinal Week and the start of the College Football Semifinals, fans are suspecting that the curse of the first-round bye is becoming a trend, with three teams that got first-round byes out of the playoffs.
Texas Tech, Georgia, and Ohio State all lost in the quarterfinals, leaving Indiana as the only team with a first-round bye still competing in the playoffs. Ole Miss, Oregon, and Miami are the only teams still playing since the first round.
Last year, the first year the CFP expanded, we saw what would become the curse of the first-round bye. The top four teams that year-Arizona State, Oregon, Boise State, and Georgia- all lost in the quarterfinals. Texas, Penn State, Notre Dame, and Ohio State, the four teams that made it past the first round, continued to advance into the playoffs, with Ohio State being the overall champion that year.
Before expanding the College Football playoffs, the top four teams that earned a spot would have a bye week before playing in the semifinals, with the two remaining teams playing in the championship. Now, with the addition of the first-round games and quarterfinals, teams with first-round byes aren’t playing for three weeks.
You would think that with getting a bye, you would have more of an advantage compared to teams having to play first round; more time to practice, watch your competition, and more time to come up with plays, but not playing for weeks compared to playing a week later.
Look at Texas Tech, the team that didn’t play for weeks, and Oregon, a team that had to play in the first round. Oregon came out stronger with 234 passing yards and 309 total passing yards, while Texas Tech had 4 turnovers and 137 passing yards. Texas Tech also didn’t score the entire game. The final score of the game was 23-0. Typically, Tech can score 10 points before halftime, but this game, they weren’t able to. Similar to Ohio State and Miami. Ohio State, from the starting gates, was doomed compared to Miami, which was more assertive and had more momentum on the lines.
Even though these four teams had more time to prep and practice while other teams had to play right after finding out that they made the playoffs with only a week of practice, we saw that the teams who’ve been playing since the very beginning were quicker and had more momentum compared to teams who have first round byes were a bit slower into the game and had less momentum. Georgia had a slow start in the first quarter but took the lead in the second quarter, 21-12. However, Georgia wasn’t able to hold on to the lead, despite holding a lead for the majority of the game, and Ole Miss was able to get a touchdown in overtime.
Fans, however, believe the curse has been ‘broken’ with Indiana being the only bye team left to advance. I like to think that is true, but we never know what the outcome could be; Indiana could win and make it to the Championship game or lose and be out of the playoffs. You never know the outcome or what can happen. Indiana has played well, which is why they are still in the playoffs. With Indiana’s win against Alabama, 45-3, the record for teams with a bye is now 1-7.
Personally, I don’t think the curse of the first-round bye is something that can be avoided. I mean, you can’t really avoid getting a first-round bye unless you want to play terribly, and no team wants to do that; they want to make it to the National Championship. It’s also something that happens. It all depends on how you choose to play as a team, and sometimes some teams are just playing stronger than others. It just doesn’t really help that teams that get first-round byes don’t play for a while, and they are slower and have less energy. I miss what it used to be before the CFP expanded, when the top four had a week off before the semifinals. We’ll see next season if we should expect another team to be cursed by a first-round bye.’
