End of an era: 10 best players of the 4-team playoff

The four-team College Football Playoff era comes to a close this season — one season after it should have ended. It was far from perfect and left us with plenty of controversy over the years, but it's safe to say it was a better postseason format than the BCS that preceded it.

While there's an expanded 12-team field to look forward to next season, let's first look back at the best players of the four-team playoff era.

[More from this series: Best games | Best teams]

10. Alabama RB Derrick Henry

Henry’s stats during the College Football Playoff weren’t eye-popping by his standards, but he still scored five touchdowns over two games as the Crimson Tide won the national title.

Henry won the Heisman Trophy ahead of the CFP on the heels of 90 carries over Alabama’s last two games of the season. Henry rushed 46 times for 271 yards and a TD against Auburn to end the regular season and rushed 44 times for 189 yards and a TD against Florida in the SEC title game.

He rushed for just 75 yards and two scores on 20 carries in Alabama’s easy win over Michigan State in the Cotton Bowl before he had 36 carries for 158 yards and three scores in Alabama’s 45-40 win over Clemson. Henry scored twice in the first half — including on a 50-yard run — and his one-yard run with 1:07 to go officially put the game away for the Crimson Tide.

9. LSU WR Justin Jefferson

The current Minnesota Vikings star showed just how unstoppable he could be in the College Football Playoff at the end of the 2019 season.

Jefferson had 14 catches for 227 yards and four touchdowns as the Tigers blitzed Oklahoma in the Peach Bowl. All four of those TD catches came in the first 21 minutes of the game as LSU led the Sooners 35-7 before the midway point of the second quarter.

Two weeks later, Jefferson then had nine catches for 106 yards as LSU beat Clemson for the national title. Jefferson finished the season with 111 catches for 1,540 yards and 18 scores as teammate Ja’Marr Chase had 84 catches for 1,780 yards and 20 TDs.

8. Alabama and Oklahoma QB Jalen Hurts

Hurts’ playoff performances won’t go down in postseason lore, but he’s the only quarterback to start playoff games for two different teams.

Hurts started as a freshman for the Crimson Tide in 2016 and his first loss as a starter came to Clemson in the national title game. He completed just 13-of-31 passes in that game but also rushed 10 times for 63 yards and was seconds away from an undefeated season.

The next year, Alabama struggled in the title game against Georgia before Tua Tagovailoa replaced Hurts at halftime. By now, you know what happened next. Hurts spent his junior season behind Tagovailoa at Alabama and had brief cameos in both playoff games at the end of the 2018 season before transferring to Oklahoma.

At Oklahoma, Hurts finished second in the Heisman voting to Burrow and led the Sooners to the College Football Playoff. While he didn’t have a great game against the Tigers in the CFP, it also wasn’t his fault that the Oklahoma defense gave up seven first-half TD passes to Burrow.

7. Clemson QB Trevor Lawrence

Lawrence burst onto the scene as a freshman as the Tigers went 15-0 in 2018-19 and won the national title. Lawrence took over as the starter in September and immediately was one of the best quarterbacks in college football as a true freshman. He threw for over 300 yards in each of Clemson’s playoff wins and threw for three touchdowns in the semifinal win against Notre Dame and another three scores in Clemson’s easy win over Alabama for the national title.

The Tigers won 14 straight games to start Lawrence’s sophomore season and set up a matchup against LSU for the national title. However, the Tigers from Louisiana handed Lawrence his first loss as a collegiate quarterback.

Clemson got back to the playoff in Lawrence’s third and final season with the Tigers, but just like the previous year, the season ended in New Orleans. Lawrence threw an interception and fumbled as Clemson lost 49-28 to the Buckeyes.

In five playoff games, Lawrence threw for 10 touchdowns and 1,567 yards.

6. Ohio State RB Ezekiel Elliott

Elliott put the Buckeyes on his shoulders during their run to the national title in the 2014-15 season.

Ohio State entered the postseason without both Braxton Miller and J.T. Barrett. Miller suffered a shoulder injury in August that sidelined him for the season, while Barrett suffered a season-ending injury in the Buckeyes’ win over Michigan. Those injuries put Cardale Jones into the starting lineup.

Jones acquitted himself well as a starter in the playoff, but Elliott was the offense’s engine. After rushing 20 times for 220 yards in the Big Ten championship game against Wisconsin, Elliott rushed 20 times for 230 yards and two scores against Alabama. His 85-yard run late in the fourth quarter against the Crimson Tide put the game away and pushed the Buckeyes into the title game.

He then set a career-high in carries against the Ducks as he powered Ohio State to the first CFP national title. After Oregon cut Ohio State’s lead to 21-20 in the third quarter, Elliott scored the final three touchdowns of the game in a 36-carry effort. His one-yard run with less than 30 seconds to go was his fourth of the game and he finished with 246 yards.

5. Clemson QB Deshaun Watson

Watson was fantastic in each of his two title game appearances against Alabama.

In January of 2016, Watson was 30-of-47 for 405 yards and four touchdowns as Clemson lost 45-40 to the Crimson Tide. Watson also rushed 20 times for 73 yards as he accounted for all but 72 of Clemson’s offensive yards.

The next season, Watson was even better and produced one of the most iconic plays in playoff history. As he did the year before, Watson carried Clemson’s offense once again as he had all but 49 of Clemson’s yards. Watson finished the game with four total touchdowns as he was 36-of-56 passing for 420 yards and 43 rushing yards.

That fourth score came with one second to go when Watson found Hunter Renfrow for the game-winning TD in the Tigers’ 35-31 win over the Tide.

4. Alabama QB Tua Tagovailoa

Tagovailoa is most-known for his pass to DeVonta Smith to beat Georgia and Alabama might have gone to the playoff in all three of his seasons in Tuscaloosa if it wasn’t for a late-season hip injury in 2019.

Tagovailoa took over as Alabama’s full-time starter for Hurts in 2018 and the Tide went undefeated during the regular season. Tagovailoa was 24-of-27 for 318 yards and four touchdowns in a 45-34 win over Oklahoma in the 2018 Orange Bowl to set up a game against Clemson for the national title. However, Tagovailoa couldn’t recapture the title game magic for a second straight season as he threw two interceptions in the 44-16 loss to the Tigers.

Alabama was 8-1 with Tagovailoa as a starter in 2019 but he suffered a season-ending hip injury in an easy win over Mississippi State in November. Two weeks later the Tide lost to Auburn to end the regular season and any hope of making the playoff.

3. Georgia QB Stetson Bennett

The former walk-on QB is the only starting quarterback to win back-to-back titles in the College Football Playoff era. And while it’s indisputable that Bennett was the quarterback of two of the best all-around teams of the 2000s, he also played a vital role in their national title wins.

Bennett was 17-of-26 for 224 yards and two touchdowns as Georgia avenged its SEC title game loss to Alabama in the national championship on Jan. 10, 2022. That performance came after he threw for three touchdowns in the Bulldogs’ win over Michigan in the semifinals.

A year later, Bennett was even better in the playoff. He accounted for 10 total touchdowns over Georgia’s two playoff wins as the Bulldogs won their second straight title. Bennett was 23-of-34 for 398 yards and had four total touchdowns in Georgia’s 42-41 win over Ohio State in the Peach Bowl. Less than two weeks later, he as 18-of-25 passing for 304 yards and four touchdowns while also rushing for two more in Georgia’s blowout win over TCU.

2. Alabama WR DeVonta Smith

Smith went from national title game hero as a freshman to Heisman winner as a senior in his time at Alabama.

The pass Smith caught from Tua Tagovailoa to win the 2017-18 national title game over Georgia was just Smith’s eighth catch of the season and Tagovailoa’s 77th pass attempt of the year.

A year later, Smith had 42 catches before exploding onto the scene as a junior. While Alabama missed out on the playoff in 2019, Smith announced his presence with 68 matches for 1,256 yards and 14 TDs.

He was even better in 2020 as Alabama averaged nearly 49 points per game and went 14-0 on the way to the national title. Smith had 117 catches for 1,856 yards and 23 TDs — no other Alabama player had more than 55 catches — as he became the first wide receiver since Desmond Howard to win the Heisman Trophy.

Smith capped his Heisman season with a fantastic playoff performance too. He had seven catches for 130 yards and three scores against Notre Dame before he had 12 catches for 215 yards and three touchdowns against Ohio State.

1. LSU QB Joe Burrow

Burrow put together the best season of any modern college football quarterback in 2019 and was phenomenal in the College Football Playoff.

The former Ohio State QB accounted for a whopping 14 TDs in LSU’s two CFP wins over Oklahoma and Clemson. Burrow threw a staggering seven first-half touchdowns against the Sooners in the Peach Bowl before rushing for another in the second half. He finished that game 29-of-39 passing for 493 yards in what’s still the best single-game passing performance in playoff history.

Two weeks later, Burrow was nearly as good against Clemson. He finished the game 31-of-49 passing for 463 yards and five touchdowns while rushing 14 times for 58 yards and a score as LSU capped off an incredible 15-0 season.

Burrow threw for over 5,600 yards and 60 TDs that season. And if you want some perspective on just how good he was throughout its entirety, his 63.3% completion percentage in the national title game was the first time all year that Burrow had completed less than 70% of his passes in a game.