Texas is relishing the novel win-or-go-home nature of the College Football Playoff

In the long and storied history of both the Texas Longhorns and the Ohio State Buckeyes, there has been just one season where one of the two teams played 15 games prior to 2024. Ohio State’s 2014 national title campaign culminated with a 15th game, a defeat of Oregon in the College Football Playoff, to put the Buckeyes at 14-1.

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On Friday, Texas will be playing game 16 for the first time ever after playing game 15 for the first time ever versus Arizona State. Ohio State will create its second 15-game season and seek to make Buckeye history, no small feat, with game 16 in the College Football Playoff national championship.

That’s one effect of the College Football Playoff. Another? Multiple true win-or-go-home games.

Those types of contests have existed for about a decade in college football since the inception of the four-team College Football Playoff. Starting in 2014, two of the New Year’s Six bowls were designated as semifinals to create a multi-game playoff system for the first time in the history of the sport at the FBS level.

Of course, there were high stakes games before the inception of the Playoff. For a Texas example, the Longhorns’ 2009 national title hopes would have been dashed had they not eked past Ndamukong Suh and the Nebraska Cornhuskers in the 2009 Big 12 Championship.

But they weren’t true win-or-go-home battles. 2021 Ohio State lost The Game to Michigan at the end of the year, but its national title hopes were not extinguished as the Buckeyes made the four-team CFP on the other side of the bracket from the Wolverines.

Plus, despite the diminishing importance of bowl games, seasons didn’t end as a result of losing high-stakes games like conference championships. Texas had to play in the 2001 Holiday Bowl after losing the Big 12 Championship to Colorado. Ohio State still had to go play Clemson in the Orange Bowl after losing the 2013 Big 10 Championship to Michigan State.

That’s not the case with the 12-team playoff, even at this familiar stage. Texas is playing its third-consecutive win-or-go-home game after defeating Clemson and Arizona State. The Buckeyes are at the same juncture following wins over Tennessee and Oregon.

For Texas, it creates a different way of thinking.

“With these added games, I feel like it just gives you a kind of different switch, a different mentality knowing that one of these games could be your last game,” senior Texas defensive back Andrew Mukuba said Sunday. “So we just try to go out there and prepare like this could be our last game, or else we’ll keep going. So it’s really just a mentality, to be honest with you, knowing that we’re in a situation where if we lose, we’re going home. And if we win, we just keep playing.”

Playoff games have long been a part of the two levels of football that sandwich the FBS, and even lower levels of the NCAA. High school has it, as it takes six wins to take home the state championship in the upper classifications of UIL in Texas. Winning the Super Bowl takes four wins in the playoffs for a team that plays on Wild Card weekend.

Even in FCS, the North Dakota State Bison had to win three games with a first-round bye to take home the 2024 FCS national championship.

FBS is just getting used to this. There are positives and negatives.

“Mentally, we feel like everybody’s doing good,” sophomore Texas linebacker Anthony Hill said Sunday. “Your body may not feel the best, but at the end of the day, nobody cares. You have to go execute and get in the training room.”

Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian spoke often in the early portions of the season about the need to put as many players on the field as possible to create depth for what he hoped was a lengthy playoff run. That’s seen players like Trevor Goosby not be intimidated by the moment when he had to play for Kelvin Banks and Cameron Williams in recent weeks at two different offensive tackle positions. That’s helped Arch Manning be someone Sarkisian isn’t afraid to utilize in specialty situations in high-stakes games against Texas A&M and Arizona State.

There are more examples at multiple positions, but all that utilization of depth has come to bear as the Longhorns are just one game away from playing for the national championship.

There’s a camaraderie factor as well. January 20 will be one of the latest dates a college football game in a normal season has been played. Even in the COVID-plagued season in 2020, the national title game was on January 11. Texas is set to play on January 10 for a chance to play 10 days later.

“Going into the bowl games, we’re playing games with each other a lot,” Hill said. “We had a lot of time to spend with each other. It’s been pretty good getting extra time with some of the guys, some of the extra linebackers, some of the seniors that are going to be gone next year. It’s been pretty cool getting extra time with them and just chilling with them.”

Those are added bonuses for making it to this stage, but with those bonuses come extra rigors. There’s extra pressure packed on each game. That’s what makes plays like Texas’ goal-line stand versus Clemson special, or the 4th-and-13 versus Arizona State special in Longhorn history. It’s not that they were important plays, it’s that they were important do-or-die plays.

It’s a novel concept for the sport, and it’s a concept the players have latched onto ahead of the latest most have ever played in a campaign.

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“This is what you want,” Mukuba said. “For a guy like me, this is what I’ve wanted. So the more games we play, the better it is for us as a team to have the opportunity to reach our goal. And as an individual goal, it’s the opportunity to go on the big stage and showcase your talent.”

In the long and storied history of both the Texas Longhorns and the Ohio State Buckeyes, there has been just one season where one of the two teams played 15 games prior to 2024. Ohio State’s 2014 national title campaign culminated with a 15th game, a defeat of Oregon in the College Football Playoff, to put the Buckeyes at 14-1.

[BOOKMARK: Check Inside Texas daily for FREE Texas Longhorns content]

On Friday, Texas will be playing game 16 for the first time ever after playing game 15 for the first time ever versus Arizona State. Ohio State will create its second 15-game season and seek to make Buckeye history, no small feat, with game 16 in the College Football Playoff national championship.

That’s one effect of the College Football Playoff. Another? Multiple true win-or-go-home games.

Those types of contests have existed for about a decade in college football since the inception of the four-team College Football Playoff. Starting in 2014, two of the New Year’s Six bowls were designated as semifinals to create a multi-game playoff system for the first time in the history of the sport at the FBS level.

Of course, there were high stakes games before the inception of the Playoff. For a Texas example, the Longhorns’ 2009 national title hopes would have been dashed had they not eked past Ndamukong Suh and the Nebraska Cornhuskers in the 2009 Big 12 Championship.

But they weren’t true win-or-go-home battles. 2021 Ohio State lost The Game to Michigan at the end of the year, but its national title hopes were not extinguished as the Buckeyes made the four-team CFP on the other side of the bracket from the Wolverines.

Plus, despite the diminishing importance of bowl games, seasons didn’t end as a result of losing high-stakes games like conference championships. Texas had to play in the 2001 Holiday Bowl after losing the Big 12 Championship to Colorado. Ohio State still had to go play Clemson in the Orange Bowl after losing the 2013 Big 10 Championship to Michigan State.

That’s not the case with the 12-team playoff, even at this familiar stage. Texas is playing its third-consecutive win-or-go-home game after defeating Clemson and Arizona State. The Buckeyes are at the same juncture following wins over Tennessee and Oregon.

For Texas, it creates a unique way of thinking.

“With these added games, I feel like it just gives you a kind of different switch, a different mentality knowing that one of these games could be your last game,” senior Texas defensive back Andrew Mukuba said Sunday. “So, we just try to go out there and prepare like this could be our last game, or else we’ll keep going. So, it’s really just a mentality, to be honest with you, knowing that we’re in a situation where if we lose, we’re going home. And if we win, we just keep playing.”

Playoff games have long been a part of the two levels of football that sandwich the FBS, and even lower levels of the NCAA. High school has it, as it takes six wins to take home the state championship in the upper classifications of UIL in Texas. Winning the Super Bowl takes four wins in the playoffs for a team that plays on Wild Card weekend.

Even in FCS, the North Dakota State Bison had to win three games with a first-round bye to take home the 2024 FCS national championship.

FBS is just getting used to this. There are positives and negatives.

“Mentally, we feel like everybody’s doing good,” sophomore Texas linebacker Anthony Hill said Sunday. “Your body may not feel the best, but at the end of the day, nobody cares. You have to go execute and get in the training room.”

Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian spoke often in the early portions of the season about the need to put as many players on the field as possible to create depth for what he hoped was a lengthy playoff run. That’s seen players like Trevor Goosby not be intimidated by the moment when he had to play for Kelvin Banks and Cameron Williams in recent weeks at two different offensive tackle positions. That’s helped Arch Manning be someone Sarkisian isn’t afraid to utilize in specialty situations in high-stakes games against Texas A&M and Arizona State.

There are more examples at multiple positions, but all that utilization of depth has come to bear as the Longhorns are just one game away from playing for the national championship.

There’s a camaraderie factor as well. January 20 will be one of the latest dates a college football game in a normal season has been played. Even in the COVID-plagued season in 2020, the national title game was on January 11. Texas is set to play on January 10 for a chance to play 10 days later.

“Going into the bowl games, we’re playing games with each other a lot,” Hill said. “We had a lot of time to spend with each other. It’s been pretty good getting extra time with some of the guys, some of the extra linebackers, some of the seniors that are going to be gone next year. It’s been pretty cool getting extra time with them and just chilling with them.”

Those are added bonuses for making it to this stage, but with those bonuses comes extra rigor. There’s extra pressure packed on each game. That’s what makes plays like Texas’ goal-line stand versus Clemson special, or the 4th-and-13 versus Arizona State special in Longhorn history. It’s not that they were important plays, it’s that they were important do-or-die plays.

It’s a novel concept for the sport, and it’s a concept the players have latched onto ahead of the latest most have ever played in a campaign.

[Join Inside Texas TODAY and get 7 days for just ONE DOLLAR!]

“This is what you want,” Mukuba said. “For a guy like me, this is what I’ve wanted. So the more games we play, the better it is for us as a team to have the opportunity to reach our goal. And as an individual goal, it’s the opportunity to go on the big stage and showcase your talent.”