College Football Playoff quarterfinals 2025: Takeaways from every game - ESPN

We opened the College Football Playoff quarterfinals with an upset. With an early 14-0 burst and a clutch, late touchdown drive, No. 10 Miami took down No. 2 Ohio State 24-14 in the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic in Arlington, Texas.

That's quite the tone-setter. The next three quarterfinals will all take place on Thursday -- do we have more upsets on the way? Who is most prepared to take advantage with the defending champions vanquished?

Here are the primary takeaways from the quarterfinal round.

Miami combined steady and efficient offense with a 72-yard Keionte Scott pick-six to race to a 14-0 lead, and when Ohio State rallied to get to within 17-14 in the second half, the Hurricanes responded with a perfect five-minute, 70-yard touchdown drive to ice the game.

Miami's defense dominated the early going. Star ends Rueben Bain Jr. and Akheem Mesidor combined for three sacks in the first half, and Ohio State punted on four of its first five drives. After Julian Sayin hit Jeremiah Smith for a 59-yard bomb in the second quarter, Scott pounced on a telegraphed screen pass and took it the other way for a score.

The second half was a battle of toughness. Ohio State established a solid run game and got a few more big catches from Smith -- he finished with seven catches for 157 yards and a touchdown -- and crawled back to within 17-14. But Miami dusted off burly North Dakota State transfer CharMar Brown; in his first six touches of the CFP, he gained 31 yards. After the Hurricanes pulled off third-and-4 and third-and-3 conversions, Brown scored from 5 yards out with 0:55 left. Jakobe Thomas' interception sealed the upset.

Miami controlled the early-going, but a Mark Fletcher Jr. fumble prevented the Canes from going up early. He made up for it with a 9-yard touchdown catch off of a faked Carson Beck sneak, and Scott's pick-six shifted the odds in the Hurricanes' favor.

After cutting Miami's lead to 17-14, Smith caught a huge, 16-yard pass on third-and-15 as the clock ticked under eight minutes. But a holding penalty -- the first accepted penalty of the entire game -- forced the Buckeyes backwards. After a 53-yard punt was nullified by an illegal formation penalty, a shorter punt set Miami up at the 30. The Hurricanes basically iced the game with a lovely, 13-yard screen pass to CJ Daniels on third downs (he moved the chains three times on third downs), but Brown's touchdown officially iced it.

Ohio State's season was almost perfectly crafted for another national title run. The Buckeyes survived a rock fight against Texas in Week 1, then won their next 11 games by an average of 39-8. And while they lost to Indiana in the Big Ten championship game, they were still set up beautifully for a title run. Instead, they failed to offset a growing trend. In the first five quarterfinal games of the 12-team playoff era, the teams that had a first-round bye have fallen behind by scores of 14-0 (Boise State vs. Penn State), 34-0 (Oregon vs. Ohio State), 17-3 (Arizona State vs. Texas), 20-3 (Georgia vs. Notre Dame) and, now, 14-0 (Ohio State vs. Miami). The first-round bye, combined with a neutral site bowl, haven't yet proven to be any sort of reward. Miami took the fight to the rusty Buckeyes early and was rewarded for it.

Ohio State heads into 2026 in perfectly solid shape, of course. Sayin will return after throwing for 3,610 yards and 32 touchdowns in 2025 (he had 287 and one TD on Wednesday night), and the major stars in the skill corps -- Smith and running back Bo Jackson (11 carries for 55 yards) -- should be back as well. The Buckeyes are built to compete every year in a 12-team playoff era.

Still, a missed opportunity is a missed opportunity. After looking like the best team in the country for 12 games, the Buckeyes finished 2025 with back-to-back losses, and as Miami made this game a test of physicality and toughness, Ohio State couldn't respond appropriately.

After becoming the first double-digit seed to win a playoff game, Miami has now become the first to reach a semifinal as well. It was very much in doubt whether Mario Cristobal's Hurricanes would make the CFP at all, but they've made the most of the opportunity. They'll play either Georgia or Ole Miss in the Fiesta Bowl. With the way their defensive line has dominated, and with Beck's excellent ball control -- he threw for just 138 yards on Wednesday, but he was 19-for-26 and almost never put the ball in harm's way -- the Hurricanes are going to have a shot against any team they play.

This was, quite simply, the biggest Miami win since 2002. With loads of former Hurricane greats on the sideline -- from Michael Irvin, to Ray Lewis, to former coach Jimmie Johnson -- college football's history was very much present in Arlington. And the Hurricanes managed to overcome both recent ghosts and Ohio State's talent to survive and advance.