The highlight of New Year’s Day was UGA enduring the entirety of the Sooner attack, which had worked all season long.

Rose Bowl: Georgia 54, Oklahoma 48

Something about college football’s most perfect setting evidently creates the sport’s most perfect football. At least, it has lately. After last season’s brilliant USC win over Penn State, this year’s Rose Bowl raised the stakes — a CFP semifinal — and the quality and drama as well.

Virtually every star made at least one memorable play:

• OU's Baker Mayfield went 23-for-35 for 287 yards and two scores; he caught a touchdown pass as well.
• UGA's Sony Michel and Nick Chubb combined to carry 25 times for 326 yards and five touchdowns. Michel also caught four balls for 41 yards and another score.
• OU's Rodney Anderson rushed 26 times for 201 yards and two scores.
• OU's Marquise Brown caught eight balls for 114 yards and a touchdown, while CeeDee Lamb and Mark Andrews combined for 10 catches and 118 more yards.
• UGA's Javon Wims caught six passes for 73 yards and a touchdown.
• After a quiet first half, UGA's Roquan Smith absolutely dominated, blowing up a couple of gimmicky plays and finishing with a game-leading 7.5 tackles.
• UGA safety Dominick Sanders picked off a fourth-quarter pass to give set up a go-ahead score.
• OU defensive end Obo Okoronkwo stopped rushes for two or fewer yards on four of his five tackles .

The wide-open game started to shut down at the end, though. Georgia went scoreless for three straight late possessions before scoring to force overtime, and OU grew conservative; including overtime, the Sooners’ final four drives produced two punts and two field goal attempts.

“OU played not to lose!” became one of the game’s overriding narratives, and hey, that’s what happens when you lose. But it’s not completely fair, primarily because ball control was one of the things that made the Sooners offense so special this season.

Heading into Bedlam, I wrote about OU’s incredible offense.

* Oklahoma took the ball with 8:28 left [in 2016’s Bedlam game] ... and didn't give it back. The Sooners ran out the clock with 13 plays (12 rushes) and four first downs.

* Last week against Texas Tech, it was the same thing. Up 49-27, the Sooners stuffed the Red Raiders on fourth-and-goal with 11:16 left. They moved 65 yards in 18 plays and exactly 11:16.

* Up 15 over Ohio State in September, they killed five key fourth-quarter minutes in one drive.

For all of Baker Mayfield's strengths, OU's success has been due in part to ball control. It has played a role in the Sooners winning seven of their last eight one-possession games.

This comes from having timely execution and being really good at a lot of things.

OU built leads with big plays, then salted away games with an underrated grind-it-out ability. The problem wasn’t that the Sooners went into grind mode — the problem was that it didn’t work.

• D'Andre Walker and Tyler Clark stuffed Anderson for no gain on third-and-3 with 3:26 left to force a punt.
• Smith and Reggie Carter stopped a Jordan Smallwood end-around inches short of the first down in overtime.
• In the second OT, Georgia perfectly strung out an option pitch to Kyler Murray, then Smith swallowed up Anderson to set up a third-and-long.

OU was playing OU ball, albeit with perhaps a little bit more cuteness than normal. The story is that Georgia stopped it.

(Meanwhile, getting aggressive potentially cost OU a shot at a last-second field goal in regulation. On a third-and-2 from the OU 45 with 29 seconds left, the Sooners attempted a low-probability wheel route to Anderson instead of running the ball and moving the chains.)

No, if you’re going to pick OU apart for going conservative, jump on the “Never squib!” bandwagon instead. Squib kickoffs are almost always a pointless idea, and OU executed one so badly at the end of the first half that it gifted Georgia a field goal. In a game that went to overtime.

Sugar Bowl: Alabama 24, Clemson 6

Apparently two classics could have been too much to handle. In the other CFP semifinal, Nick Saban’s Crimson Tide just rudely handled its business. In a game that I thought would be decided by which team’s QB made plays, matters were settled by who couldn’t even come close.

Alabama's defense, banged up late in the season, came to New Orleans with a point to prove, and Clemson QB Kelly Bryant bore the brunt of said point. He completed 18 of 36 passes for just 124 yards, two interceptions, and five sacks. Yards per pass attempt, including sacks: 2.2. He was able to scramble for success (14 non-sack carries, 53 yards), but even that was limited.

Alabama's Jalen Hurts had his moments but didn't fare all that much better. He went 16-for-24 for just 120 yards and two sacks (yards per attempt: a still-paltry 4.3), but he was the one who didn’t get picked off on back-to-back passes in the third quarter. With Clemson down just 10-6 and driving to perhaps take the lead, Da'Ron Payne snared a deflected pass to set up a short touchdown (scored by Payne himself on a pick play), then Mack Wilson took an 18-yard pick six to the house to give Alabama its deciding 24-6 advantage.

The Tide offense couldn't ever find the one final score it was looking for and lost two starters to late knee injuries -- outside linebacker Anfernee Jennings and offensive guard Lester Cotton. But they took care of business and made sure that Bama-Clemson III wasn't nearly as thrilling as the first two iterations.

Peach Bowl: UCF 34, Auburn 27

For the time being, we’ll leave aside the subplots, that the CFP committee couldn’t see past “ain’t played nobody” to rank a legitimately awesome UCF higher than 12th, or that Auburn followed up maybe its highest sustained level of brilliance under Gus Malzahn (rather dominant wins over national title combatants Georgia and Alabama) with back-to-back defeats. We’ll come back to those things.

This was one hell of a football game without them.

UCF’s McKenzie Milton couldn’t complete a pass to save his life early in this game, starting just 2-for-15 for 14 yards. So he just kept rushing until the pass started working. Auburn led just 3-0 after the first quarter despite an 83-8 advantage, and after UCF recovered a Tiger fumble, Milton’s 18-yard scramble gave the Knights an unlikely 10-3 lead.

It was 13-6 at halftime when Auburn got out of its own way. A huge kickoff return set up a touchdown pass from Jarrett Stidham to Will Hastings, then the Tigers drove 82 yards in 10 plays to take a 20-13 lead.

It seemed like Auburn was taking control, but UCF wouldn’t allow it. Milton completed passes to Jordan Akins, Tre'Quan Smith, and, finally, Otis Anderson to tie the game at 20-20 late in the third quarter, and after a quick Auburn three-and-out, UCF went 59 yards, taking the lead on a Milton-to-Dredrick Snelson touchdown. Auburn was driving to respond when Chequan Burkett picked off a Jarrett Stidham pass near midfield and took it to the house.

With six minutes left, UCF led by two touchdowns. Auburn would score quickly and benefit from two missed field goals to get the ball back one last time with a chance to tie. No dice. From the UCF 21 with 24 seconds left, a hurried Stidham tried to throw the ball away but couldn’t get it out of bounds. Freshman Antwan Collier picked it off in the end zone, and UCF survived.

Citrus Bowl: Notre Dame 21, LSU 17

We’ll just say that sloppy conditions made the dagger pretty easy to drop in Orlando. LSU created six scoring opportunities (first downs inside the opponent’s 40) against Notre Dame: the first three resulted in a punt, a missed 22-yard field goal, and a missed 37-yard field goal. The Tigers could have more or less ended the game in the first half.

Notre Dame really kind of blew it, too. The Fighting Irish also had six scoring opps; the first three resulted in a turnover on downs, a field goal, and an interception. Despite both teams having intermittent offensive success, it was 3-0 Irish at half. LSU tried to take control with two touchdown drives, but Notre Dame responded, and in the end the team that didn’t attempt a 17-yard field goal won. Justice.

One of the few times you can justify kicking a field goal on fourth-and-goal from the 1 is when game state dictates it. The teams were tied at 14-14 with 2:07 left when LSU faced this situation. Taking a lead was most important, as the opponent will probably only have one abbreviated chance to take the lead back. So LSU kicked, and I only judged them slightly for it.

It backfired all the same when Miles Boykin made one of the best catches you’ll ever see.

One-handed catches beat conservative logic 100 percent of the time.

Outback Bowl: South Carolina 26, Michigan 19

The use of the word “momentum” by college football announcers feels like it’s increasing (you could say it’s gaining momentum, I guess), which is unfortunate. A lot of what we call momentum is just Team A getting a nice bounce or Team B making a tactical tweak. The other team adjusts back or gets a bounce of its own, and now they have the “momentum.”

Sometimes, though, it seems like Team A just flipped a switch and started playing better.

Through about 40 minutes of a game we will remember mostly for a mascot cameo, Michigan led South Carolina in a field goal-laden slog, 19-3. But then the Gamecocks found the M-word.

After gaining just two yards in two touches, South Carolina back Rico Dowdle caught passes of 19 and 11 yards, then ripped off a 17-yard run to make it 19-9. Michigan fumbled, and SC made it 19-16 on a 21-yard Jake Bentley-to-Bryan Edwards pass. Michigan punted, and Shi Smith caught a 53-yard bomb. Six minutes, 20 points.

In a 2018 audition of sorts, Michigan’s Brandon Peters had a horrid afternoon, completing 20 of 44 passes for just 186 yards, two picks, two sacks, and a fumble. UM running backs Karan Higdon and Chris Evans averaged 3.4 yards per carry. Michigan’s offense was miserable for most of the day, and South Carolina’s wasn’t any better ... until it grabbed momentum.

College football's first bowl game was almost its last