🏈 How This CFB Playoff Changes Everything

The transfer portal has led to an explosion of seemingly out-of-nowhere elite QBs. Get used to that becoming the status quo. [View in browser]( [FOX SPORTS INSIDER WITH MARTIN ROGERS] In today’s FOX Sports Insider: The College Football Playoff brings some important new faces to the table ... a talented dog might just blow your mind ... and the Iowa Hawkeyes will bring the Kinnick Wave to the Holiday Bowl. There is a different look to the quarterbacking field in this year’s College Football Playoff, but you shouldn’t be surprised if this turns into the new normal. Three of the four quarterbacks, who also happen to be a trio of the highest-profile players in the college game, have shared a common journey to this point, one which saw their careers kickstarted by losing a battle. QB competitions are not quite the same anymore. The loser is no longer consigned to the certainty of backup duties well clear of the spotlight. The transfer portal’s explosion since its October 2018 debut has allowed signal callers who don’t work out in one location to seek refuge in another. Sometimes it doesn’t click for them there, either. But sometimes pastures new lead to a dream marriage, with dramatic results. Joe Burrow, Justin Fields and Jalen Hurts are three of the most overwhelming examples of transfer success that you could find — and with apologies to Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence, there is a strong chance that one of them is being lauded as a national champion within the next couple of weeks. Things could scarcely be going better for them now, but each previously faced the struggle of being told by a former program that they were not its No. 1 guy. Burrow, of LSU, became the third straight transfer to win the Heisman Trophy when he collected the accolade earlier this month. [STORY IMAGE 1] “I think that's kind of been the story of the college football season, with three of the Heisman finalists being transfers and having long roads and battling through adversity,” Burrow said this week. Burrow spent three years at Ohio State but was unable to lock down the starting job. After graduating early, he took his talent to Baton Rouge and put together a season for the ages. Ahead of Saturday’s semifinal against Oklahoma at Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Burrow has thrown for 48 touchdowns, racked up 4,715 yards and managed a 77.9 completion percentage. Across the three transfer QBs starting in the CFB Playoff this weekend, there are some interlocking strands. Burrow’s departure from Ohio State opened up space in the pecking order Fields was able to benefit from, having left Georgia to join up with the Buckeyes. Fields faced the possibility of being stuck behind incumbent Jake Fromm in the QB standings at Georgia, but did not have to sit out a year after successfully arguing his case with the NCAA. He has slotted in seamlessly as Ohio State compiled a 13-0 record this season, one matched by this weekend’s opponent, Clemson. Fields quickly earned the respect of his new teammates with his toughness and resiliency, regularly standing tall in the pocket and taking heavy shots. “He showed what he was made of,” Ohio State head coach Ryan Day said. “A lot of guys took notice of that.” Of the three, it is perhaps Oklahoma’s Hurts who has had the most remarkable ride, having been the starter for Alabama in the 2017 National Championship Game before being benched in favor of Tua Tagovailoa, who engineered a late revival and threw the game-winning touchdown. [STORY IMAGE 2] Tagovailoa’s precocious talents quickly made it clear there was little future in Tuscaloosa for Hurts, who was able to use the portal to his advantage and find a prime landing spot. Hurts has improved both his overall abilities and his NFL prospects since linking with the Sooners, and this weekend he will become the first player to start for two different teams in the CFB Playoff. “Everyone has a bit of uniqueness in their own journey,” Hurts said, when asked about the comparisons between himself and Burrow as transfers. Previously, only four transfers had begun a Playoff game at quarterback, but don’t expect this year’s haul of three to be an outlier. The portal allows greater flexibility than ever before, and the success of Burrow, Fields, Hurts and others, will surely convince many more second stringers to look for a better alternative. “I don’t think it’s going to change, you know what I’m saying?” LSU offensive coordinator Steve Ensminger told Sports Illustrated. “That’s the good and bad of it. You’re sitting there as a coach and you have players on your team that’s going to enter the transfer portal. It affects your depth and everything else, but you also get a chance to sign some great players and they come to your school, just like Joe did. It made a difference in our team.” It made a difference for LSU, indeed. [FOX Bet]( currently has them pegged at +125 favorites to win the national championship, followed by Clemson at +215 to repeat, Ohio State at +240 and Oklahoma as +1300 underdogs. Unless Lawrence leads Clemson to back-to-back titles, we will have a transfer QB as a national champion. Each of the three left their former universities without animosity — for example, there will be plenty of Crimson Tide fans wishing Hurts well on Saturday. It is part of the college football culture now. And if you like seeing people capitalize on second chances, you’ve come to the right place. [STORY IMAGE 3] Here’s what others have said ... Blake Biscardi, FanSided: “It feels like Saturday will be the culmination of everything Ohio State has worked for this season, but really since the gut-wrenching loss in the same building in 2016. After being snubbed from the CFP in the last two years, the Buckeyes enter this year’s semifinal with a chip on their shoulder looking to solidify they belong.” Tom Fornelli, USA TODAY: “I'm not picking Clemson here and thinking it's a sure thing, but I do believe this will be the best team Ohio State has faced by far itself. In the end, I believe this matchup is something of a coin flip, but if we flip the coin 100 times, it comes up Clemson 52 times. In fact, Clemson has been at its best in these type of games. Between Trevor Lawrence and an incredible set of receivers, the Tigers pose matchup problems for a strong Ohio State secondary like they would over any secondary in the country. While Ohio State's got a great QB and receivers of its own, it's not quite at the level of Clemson.” Ivan Maisel, ESPN: “But the NFL talk can wait at least one more game. At Alabama, they are all Sooners this week. They would be even if Oklahoma weren't playing LSU. The thought that Hurts has somehow put Saban and Alabama in its place mystifies Crimson Tide fans, who love him for what he did for their team and for what he didn't do for it. They will cheer for Oklahoma, for Hurts to once again pull apart his shirt and reveal an "S" on his chest. It may take that for the Sooners to beat the Tigers.” [IN OTHER WORDS] - Rob Mahoney at The Ringer names [the 10 NBA players who have made the biggest leaps forward]( so far in the 2019-20 season. - [No one has ever had a CFB career quite like Jalen Hurts](. Sports Illustrated’s Michael Rosenberg explains. - They’ve thrived in a season of tumult. Bleacher Report’s Tyler Dunne examines [why the 2019 Steelers didn’t just fold](. [THE INTERNET IS UNDEFEATED] [THE INTERNET IS UNDEFEATED]( We were prepared to post this extremely good video of an extremely good and talented dog without any real context, but we’re even more pleased to report that we’ve tracked down some information about this rare pupper. This lovely specimen is a Belgian Malinois named JianLing who is, obviously, quite good at jumping. JianLing lives in Songyuan, Jilin, China. If you happen to want to watch ten and a half minutes of JianLing doing tricks, [you can click right here](. Belated Merry Christmas! [VIEWER'S GUIDE] Holiday Bowl: No. 16 Iowa vs. No. 22 USC (FS1, 8 p.m. ET) [As we wrote about earlier this week]( Iowa will be bringing the best tradition in college football, the Kinnick Wave, to the Holiday Bowl in San Diego. That alone is plenty of reason to tune into this Friday night bowl game. WWE Friday Night SmackDown (FOX, 8 p.m. ET) What will the final SmackDown of the year have in store for the WWE Universe? After last week’s ham-based drama in the Miracle on 34th Street Fight, there’s no telling what’s next. No. 3 Clemson vs. No. 2 Ohio State (ESPN, Saturday, 8 p.m. ET) The College Football Playoff semifinals both take place on Saturday, with No. 4 Oklahoma vs. No. 1 LSU in the afternoon and culminating in Clemson vs. Ohio State, by far the toughest opponent put in front of defending champs Clemson all year. Washington Redskins at Dallas Cowboys (FOX, Sunday, 4:25 p.m. ET) There will be scoreboard watching abound on Sunday, especially when the Cowboys take the field at the same time the Giants host the Eagles. Dallas will need both a win and a Philadelphia loss to capture the NFC East title on the last day of the regular season. [BET OF THE DAY] [BET OF THE DAY] Odds provided by [FOX Bet]( Dak Prescott 331+ passing yards against Washington: +205 As noted above, the Cowboys will need a win combined with an Eagles loss on Sunday, but the pressure will be on the Dallas offense to score points for the portion of the day that they can control. Dak Prescott has thrown 334 yards or more in four of his last seven games ... the caveat here is that he’s coming off two games where he has 212 and 265 passing yards, respectively. [WHAT THEY SAID] "Treat a person as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat him as what he could be, and he will become what he should be." — Jimmy Johnson [FOLLOW FOX SPORTS] [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [YouTube]( [Instagram]( Download the FOX Sports app for live scores and streaming [App Store]( [Google Play]( Available on: [tvOS] [Roku] [fireTV] [androidtv] [XBOX] [Google chromecast] [tvOS] [Roku] [fireTV] [androidtv] [XBOX] [Google chromecast] Forwarded this message? [Sign up](. Trademark & Copyright Notice: ™ and © 2019 FOX Media LLC and FOX Sports Interactive Media, LLC. All rights reserved. Please do not reply to this message. If you do not wish to receive emails like this in the future, please [unsubscribe](. FOX Sports respects your privacy. Click [here]( to view our Privacy Policy. FOX.com Business & Legal Affairs - Manager Digital Media P.O. Box 900 Beverly Hills, CA 90213-0900