ESPN released their rankings of the top-100 games of the 2022/23 college football season on Monday. The two games at the top of the list should come as a shock to nobody given the stakes that were on the line. The College Football Playoff semifinal Fiesta Bowl between TCU and Michigan, and the other CFP semifinal, Georgia and Ohio State in the Peach Bowl were ranked as the top two games of 2022.
TCU’s upset win over Michigan is ESPN’s NCAAF Game of the Year
The wonderful people of ESPN trawled through every college football game of this season to pick out the best encounters. It saved us the time of doing so, but we almost certainly would have reached the same conclusion.
According to ESPN, the best game of 2022 was the CFP semifinal between Michigan and TCU. In an upset, the TCU Horned Frogs ran out eventual winners by a scoreline of 51-45.
In one of the wildest third quarters in CFP history, there were 44 points put on the board. Michigan cut the deficit from 18 to 3 in the quarter, but eventually came up short in the fourth. The Wolverines allowed a 76-yard Quentin Johnston TD and were unable to claw the deficit back as their excellent campaign fizzled out.
Georgia’s Peach Bowl win over Ohio State Ranked as Second Best NCAA Football Game of 2022
Ohio State vs. Georgia in the other CFP semifinal was ranked second in ESPN’s Top-100 College Football Games of 2022. It was a stormer of a game that came down to one kick of the football as the clock struck midnight to welcome in 2023.
The Buckeyes went into the fourth quarter with a 14-point lead after a back and forth game. However, Georgia worked their way back into it. With a few minutes left and Georgia trailing by six, Georgia QB Stetson Bennett marched them downfield. A pass to Adonai Mitchell put them up late on New Year’s Eve. But CJ Stroud wasn’t done, and marched his Buckeyes right back down the field.
With a couple of seconds on the clock and the Buckeyes down by one, Noah Ruggles stepped forward to kick a 50-yard field goal. The ball left his boot in 2022 and landed nowhere near the posts in 2023. It was a happy new year for Georgia, while Ohio State were left pondering what could have been.
Vols win over Bama ranked as top regular season game
There was another last-gasp kick involved in ESPN’s number-three ranked game of 2022. This time in an SEC clash between the Tennessee Volunteers and Alabama. The 52-49 Vols victory was the highest-ranked regular season game in the list.
If a game tied at 49-49 hadn’t seen enough entertainment, the Crimson Tide marched downfield one last time to set up a 50-yard field goal to win the game with about 20 seconds left. The kick was missed and Tennessee QB Hendon Hooker went to work with 15 seconds left. He somehow got the Volunteers into field goal range and Chase McGrath’s 40-yard field scraped over the bar as Tennessee toppled Alabama.
Tennessee fans then rushed the field, tore down the goalposts, and dumped them in the river.
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