Former Georgia running back Sony Michel scores the winning touchdown in the 2017 College Football Playoff semifinals. Sean M. Haffey/Getty ImagesBill ConnellySep 23, 2026, 07:00 AM ETCloseBill Connelly is a writer for ESPN. He covers college football, soccer and tennis. He has been at ESPN since 2019.Multiple AuthorsOpen Extended ReactionsIt almost feels impossible that Georgia and Oklahoma have played only once.
The Bulldogs and Sooners are two of the 11 winningest college football programs, they’ve enjoyed top-10 finishes in the same season 13 times, and they’re only two of five teams to have played in at least five College Football Playoffs. They’ve even been conference mates for a couple of years now! But they’ve mostly been ships passing in the night.But the two teams made their one meeting count. In one of those perfect days that can seem to happen only in Pasadena, they met in the Rose Bowl just under nine years ago and played an almost flawless game of football.
The two teams will finally meet for a second time this week — Oklahoma visits Athens on Saturday (3:30 p.m. ET on ESPN) — so let’s use that as an excuse to relive what was quite possibly the best playoff game of the CFP era.Actually, let’s use that as an excuse to relive lots of awesome games. Here are the 10 best playoff games of the first 12 CFPs.1. 2017 semifinals: No. 3 Georgia 54, No. 2 Oklahoma 48 (OT)The No. 2 game on this list featured maybe the greatest national title-winning play of all time. The No. 3 game decided the national title with three seconds left.
The Georgia-Oklahoma ending wasn’t quite that perfect, but (a) it was still very good, and (b) this game was amazing because it was a montage. The memorable moments began pretty early and continued for about four hours.I almost guarantee that there are some plot twists you’ve forgotten.This game basically featured three acts. First, Oklahoma turned the game into a big-play track meet and seemed in control. Then, Georgia stormed back, grabbing three extra points before halftime and then dominating the third quarter.
And then, in the third act, all hell broke loose.Act I: After a Georgia punt, Oklahoma took an early lead thanks to passes of 16, 26 and 23 yards by Baker Mayfield and a 13-yard touchdown run by Hollywood Brown. Georgia responded with a 13-yard Sony Michel touchdown (after 20-yard-plus runs from Michel and Nick Chubb), but OU responded in kind when a 45-yard Rodney Anderson run set up a 9-yard Anderson touchdown.After a missed field goal attempt from Rodrigo Blankenship, OU made it 21-7 with a 41-yard Anderson touchdown. Even when Georgia responded with a 75-yard Michel touchdown — this was such a fireworks show — the Sooners then rattled off an Austin Seibert made field goal and, after a 31-yard run by Trey Sermon and a 45-yard pass to Brown, a CeeDee Lamb-to-Mayfield touchdown pass. Oklahoma led 31-14 with six seconds left in the first half.play0:56Mayfield catches first career TD just before halfOklahoma’s win probability at that point: 92.6%.
Act II: The first foreboding twist came with some clock magic I’ve never quite understood. Georgia’s Tae Crowder somehow fielded an atrocious squib kick from Seibert at the OU 47 with no time elapsing. I honestly feel like squib kicks are terrible ideas about 90% of the time they’re attempted, so this was a bit of karma, but at least one second should have come off the clock. That became huge when one second remained after a quick pass from Jake Fromm to Terry Godwin.
Blankenship boomed in a 55-yard field goal to make the score a more manageable 31-17 at halftime.Georgia took those three charity points and ran with them in the second half. The Dawgs forced an OU three-and-out, then Chubb scored an immediate 50-yard touchdown to make it 31-24.play1:19Chubb breaks tackles on scintillating 50-yard TD runAfter two more Sooners punts — OU gained only 29 yards in the third quarter — Michel scored from 38 yards out to tie the score with 41 seconds left in the quarter. That set up an incredible, frantic final act. Act III: Michel’s tying touchdown was the first play of the game that featured at least 15% win probability added for one team.
Over the fourth quarter and overtimes, we’d get seven more.Q4, 15:00: Dominick Sanders picks off Mayfield and returns it to the OU 4. (WPA: Georgia +19.1%.) On the very first play of the quarter, Georgia set itself up to take the lead. On the second play after Sanders’ pick, Fromm found Javon Wims for a 4-yard score, and Georgia led for the first time.Q4, 8:47: Steven Parker returns a Michel fumble 46 yards for a go-ahead Oklahoma touchdown. (WPA: Oklahoma +42.0%.) Down for the first time, OU immediately went three-and-out again, but a reeling defense bought the Sooners time by forcing a punt. Mayfield completed a 36-yard pass to Lamb, ran for 22 yards, then found Dimitri Flowers for a tying touchdown. And four plays later, the Sooners led again when Caleb Kelly stripped Michel, and Parker raced down the right sideline for a scoop-and-score.play1:28Oklahoma defense gets scoop-and-score TDQ4, 3:22: Fromm passes to Godwin for 16 yards to the OU 7 on third-and-10. (WPA: Georgia +18.3%.) Suddenly reeling again, Georgia quickly went three-and-out, and OU had a chance to put away the game.
Instead, Anderson was stuffed for no gain on third-and-3, and Georgia got the ball back with 3:22 left. Passes to Godwin and Michel worked the ball into OU territory, and on third down with 1:06 left, Fromm found Godwin again for his biggest completion of the game. After a pass interference penalty, Chubb tied the score with 55 seconds left. A last-ditch OU attempt at a winning score stalled out at midfield, and the game headed to overtime.OT No. 1: Fromm throws incomplete to Isaac Nauta on third-and-6. (WPA: Oklahoma +15.5%.) Georgia got the ball first in OT and went nowhere.
Carries by Chubb and Michel gained 4 yards, and Nauta dropped a wide-open pass at the OU 5. Blankenship nailed a 38-yard field goal, but the match was back on OU’s proverbial racket.OT No. 1: Roquan Smith stops Jordan Smallwood for 1 yard on third-and-2, and Lincoln Riley elects to kick a field goal. (WPA: Georgia +24.7%.) Riley has a revolutionary offensive mind; he has been one of the game’s best playcallers for most of the past 15 years now. But in his heart, he’s a conservative old Texas high school football coach, and even with super-powered offenses, he despised the idea of going for it on fourth down. His offense had gained over 500 yards on a Kirby Smart defense, but when Smallwood was stopped short by an otherworldly tackle from Smith, Riley sent on the field goal unit instead of going for a potential win.
Seibert made a 33-yard field goal, but OU’s best chance of winning was gone.OT No. 2: Lorenzo Carter blocks Seibert’s 27-yard field goal attempt. (WPA: Georgia +27.6%) OU moved the chains once in the second OT, but a pass to Brown on third-and-12 came up 5 yards short, and the Sooners settled for another field goal attempt. This one didn’t go through.OT No. 2: Michel scores the winning 27-yard touchdown run. (WPA: Georgia +18.9%.) Emmanuel Beal made a nice play to stop D’Andre Swift for a 2-yard loss on Georgia’s second OT possession, but that gave Michel only a couple of more yards to work with. He bolted down the left sideline and sent Georgia to the national title game.play0:39Michel scores game-winning TD for Georgia in 2OTAt the end of all that, we had an almost perfect win probability chart.The game had countless standout performancesAnd the stats reflect that.Michel rushed 11 times for 181 yards and three touchdowns, and Chubb added 146 yards and two more scores on 14 carries. That’s 13.0 yards per carry between them. (Michel also caught four passes for 41 yards and another score.) Anderson, meanwhile, nearly matched them for much of the game, finishing with 201 yards and two touchdowns on 26 carries.
Imagine rushing for 200 yards in the biggest game of your
