Ranking potential College Football Playoff National Championship matchups: Miami vs. Oregon leads the way

Of the four potential outcomes, the 'Mario Cristobal Bowl' would be most appealing to everyone

We have reached the College Football Playoff semifinals, and unlike last season when the favorites won all eight games in the first two rounds, we've seen some surprises this year. Gone are the likes of Ohio State, Georgia and Alabama. In are the upstarts like Indiana, Ole Miss and a Miami team that hasn't played on a stage like this in over 20 years.

Between those three and Oregon, we are guaranteed to not only have a new national champion but a team that will win its first title in the CFP era. Of our final four teams, Miami is the only program to win a national title going back to the BCS era -- its last natty coming in 2001.

For Ole Miss, you have to go back to 1960, which is the lone national title in program history. Indiana and Oregon? They've never won the national title.

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Will Backus

NIL, the transfer portal and the College Football Playoff were supposed to bring us new blood, and it's hard to argue with the results right now, isn't it? So we're either re-crowning a long-dormant national power or welcoming a new power to the fold, but I'm not here to figure out who will take the trophy at the end right now. No, the point of our exercise today is to determine what the best possible title game matchups would be. To figure that out, I looked at the possibilities from multiple perspectives. How competitive would the game likely be? How does the matchup look? Who has the coolest uniforms? And, while I'm not a television executive, I also considered which matchup would be most appealing to a broader audience.

Here are my highly scientific results.

1. (5) Oregon vs. (10) Miami

Oregon may not have a national title to its name, but it's not exactly a stranger to the stage. This is Oregon's third appearance in the CFP, and if it advances to the title game, it will be its second appearance in a national championship game since the start of the BCS era in 1998. Miami is the blue blood of the group. It has won a national title this century and has five in its history.

While neither team is a television draw the likes of Ohio State or Alabama, they are known commodities in the college football world and would draw more "casual" eyeballs in this spot than any other possible combination. As for the matchup itself, the teams are quite similar. They have physical run games that look to punish you for 60 minutes but also have accurate quarterbacks who can get the ball to dangerous playmakers at the wide receiver position.

They're also both led by coaches who put a strong emphasis on building their program from the lines of scrimmage out, though Dan Lanning is more aggressive when it comes to gameday decisions than Mario Cristobal. Oh, and that brings up another fun storyline for this game. Mario Cristobal left Oregon to take the job at Miami and was replaced by Lanning. There was a lot of talk about the possibility of a Carson Beck vs. Georgia's revenge game the last few weeks, but we all overlooked Mario vs. Oregon.

2. (1) Indiana vs. (10) Miami

A lot of what I said about the football matchup between Oregon and Miami applies here as well. Indiana may not have a bunch of blue-chip prospects on their offensive and defensive lines, but go ahead and ask all those blue-chip teams it's beaten if they could tell the difference when facing them. The Hoosiers are just as mean as anybody, and I don't know that there's a defense in the country that takes as much joy in hitting ballcarriers as Indiana's does.

Indiana also might have the best quarterback in the country. Fernando Mendoza won the Heisman Trophy for good reason and could be the first pick in the NFL Draft this spring. So that certainly brings some "sizzle" to the matchup for television purposes. Plus, you can always sell this as New Blood vs. Blue Blood.

3. (5) Oregon vs. (6) Ole Miss

Of the four possible matchups, this is the one most likely to deliver us a shootout. Ole Miss has been involved in plenty of those all year, thanks to the likes of Trinidad Chambliss and an explosive offense. Lane Kiffin might be gone (oh, the irony of leaving for LSU to compete for national championships while then watching the team you just left do that), but he didn't take the offense with him. Ole Miss has scored 80 points through its first two playoff games after averaging 37.6 during the regular season.

Oregon has shown more versatility. It can win a rock fight, but it's also one of the most explosive offenses in the country. It has scored 40 points or more seven times this season and has cracked the 50-point mark four times.

4. (1) Indiana vs. (6) Ole Miss

This is the matchup that would have the largest spread. I don't know where the final odds would be by the time the game came around, but using my power ratings, I'd have Indiana as roughly a 10-point favorite here. Of course, if this game happens, Ole Miss will have reached the title game after beating both Georgia and Miami as underdogs in the quarters and semis, so it's not a position where the Rebels would be afraid.

Still, while I'll be happy to watch this game if it's the one we get. The blowout potential here is higher than anywhere else, which makes it the least appealing. Yes, there's the angle of neither team having won or competed for national titles in the modern era before, but like Indiana, Oregon hasn't won a national title either, so the novelty doesn't carry much weight.