Welcome to the super conference version of ESPN’s 2024 mock NCAA football tournament.
Of the teams making it to the Sweet 16, 11 are in either the Big Ten or SEC.
All four No. 1 seeds are still alive, and the lowest remaining seed is No. 5 Louisville. In this new era of college football, several transfer players have already made huge contributions, and three new coaches — Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer, Arizona’s Brent Brennan and Michigan’s Sherrone Moore — have their teams in the Sweet 16.
To recap, the original seeds were based to some degree on ESPN’s latest SP+ projections entering the 2024 season, not that seeds really mean much at this point.
Let’s finish football’s version of the 64-team tournament, where we didn’t need an endless procession of meetings with commissioners and other administrators to determine the format.
South Regional
Semifinals
(1) Georgia 35, (4) Utah 14: Georgia keeps losing great defensive players to the NFL, but other great players keep emerging from those shadows. C.J. Allen and Jalon Walker are next in line to be the kind of hard-hitting linebackers the Dawgs have featured in recent years. They combine for five tackles for loss and two forced fumbles against the Utes, and Georgia never trails.
(2) Notre Dame 34, (3) Missouri 33: It’s back and forth between two teams that have shown their resiliency all season. Cornerback Benjamin Morrison gives Notre Dame the lead heading into the fourth quarter with a 66-yard interception return for a touchdown. Missouri answers with a Brady Cook 1-yard touchdown plunge a few minutes later, but Mitch Jeter, a grad transfer from South Carolina, boots a 49-yard field goal on the game’s final play to win it in thrilling fashion for the Irish.
Regional final
(1) Georgia 30, (2) Notre Dame 27: Notre Dame plays its best game of the tournament, and Riley Leonard has the kind of success against Georgia’s secondary that few quarterbacks have experienced. The Irish take a touchdown lead into the fourth quarter, but that’s when Glenn Schumann’s defense settles in and forces three straight three-and-outs. The final one sets up a short field for Georgia, leading to 240-pound Roderick Robinson running over defenders for a 12-yard touchdown run.
How we…
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