The top 100 games of the 2017-18 college football season

We did it. After 834 regular season games, 40 bowl games, 4,376 Nick Saban scowls and one hell of a national championship game, the college football season is over. To remember and honor the season that was, I (along with a little help from the rest of the SB Nation college football crew) am going to count down the best 100 games of the season. We’ve spent the week unveiling 30 games at a time, but here it is, the best of the best: Your top 10 games of the season.

Let’s get to the list:

by Dan Rubenstein

Two weeks after getting gashed by Maryland (!), Texas stonewalled USC’s lethal Ronald Jones attack, forcing Sam Darnold to beat Texas’s biggest strength alone. And, uh, he sorta did.

In the first road start for Texas freshman Sam Ehlinger, he was a bit erratic, but made impressive throws, particularly to Collin Johnson. He made the world think this would be a consistently fruitful 2017 connection (narrator: It wasn’t).

The first half was a nightmare offensively, but a Texas pick-six (not Darnold’s fault!) kept the Horns in it. The teams traded punts and turnovers until a bonkers final minute that saw Texas drive to go up three after an Ehlinger touchdown, then saw USC drive for a game-tying field goal, with Gus Johnson justifiably freaking out.

In overtime, Darnold was who we hoped he’d be. He threw a laser touchdown on the first play, and following a short Texas touchdown, USC forced a fumble in 2OT, setting up Chase McGrath (the most USC name) to kick the game winner.

Oh, and this was 11 years after these teams met in their epic Rose Bowl national championship, giving it a game-of-the-week atmosphere the whole time.

You almost couldn’t blame OU for taking their eye off the ball. Their rivalry with Texas was just a week away, and ISU quarterback Jacob Park had just stepped away from the team. The Cyclones would be starting Kyle Kempt. OU scored a touchdown, forced a three-and-out, and scored a touchdown again to go up 14-0. This one was in the bag.

Only, the Cyclones kept hanging around. They tied it at 24 on a pass to Marchie Murdock. And after OU missed a field goal, ISU took the lead on Trever Ryen’s 57-yard catch-and-run. OU responded, but ISU kept charging. Allen Lazard’s gorgeous touchdown put the Cyclones ahead again with 2:19 left.

Stunned it still had to keep fighting, the Sooners’ offense stalled at its own 42, and Iowa State had pulled one of 2017’s biggest stunners. The Cyclones are OU’s daddy until next year in Ames.

Iowa’s biggest win isn’t on this list — 31-point blowouts don’t make it, even against Ohio State — but the Hawkeyes nearly pulled off a statement earlier in the year, too. Penn State had defeated its first three opponents by 141-14 and outgained Iowa by more than 300 yards ... so imagine the Nittany Lions’ surprise when they trailed with under two minutes remaining.

McSorley responded with the calmest two-minute drill you’ll ever see. He completed three short passes, ripped off a 12-yard rush into Iowa territory, and completed an 18-yarder to Juwan Johnson and a 14-yarder to Saeed Blacknall. With four seconds left, PSU was seven yards short. But then Johnson caught his seventh pass of the night.

Iowa State had probably the best defense in the Big 12. Iowa had one of the Big Ten’s best as well. Both had hit-or-miss offenses ... but the two purveyors of three of the season’s biggest upsets (counting ISU over TCU as well) played in a shootout all the same.

The teams scored five touchdowns in the final 16 minutes of regulation, each minute wilder than the one before it. With 4:36 left, Jacob Park found Hakeem Butler wiiide open for a 74-yard score and a 38-31 lead. With 69 seconds left, Akrum Wadley ran for a nice touchdown.

A back-and-forth game deserved a back-and-forth finish.

ISU settled for a 30-yard Garett Owens field goal in overtime, setting the table for Ihmir Smith-Marsette’s outstretched game-winner.

Now-former UCLA head coach Jim Mora didn’t hire coordinator Jedd Fisch to wing the ball around like a spread offense. But about two quarters into the season, Fisch had no choice. The Bruins were getting run out of their stadium by a team with a freshman quarterback.

With four minutes left before halftime, Keith Ford’s touchdown run gave A&M a 31-3 lead. The first seven drives of the Fisch-Josh Rosen union had resulted in a field goal, four punts, and two lost fumbles. Everything was going wrong, and when UCLA scored to make it 31-10, A&M went on a 13-0 run (including a celebration with a drum major’s mace) to lead by 34 points with 19 minutes left.

And then ...

by Steven Godfrey

Maybe it’s best to remember J.T. Barrett as a series of amazing moments free of any larger context. That’s what he became against Penn State. He outshone everyone, including Saquon Barkley during a game in which Barkley ran the opening kickoff for a 97-yard touchdown. Barrett’s winning drive and his 423 total yards are the ideal way to remember his career in Columbus.

by Spencer Hall

All I want at the tail end of the year is a game with no defense, high stakes, and a regional and/or possibly theoretical rivalry that only 500 people care about — but care about enough to threaten you with murder for underestimating how much they care.

The War on I-4 had 1,182 yards of offense, five lead changes, and a 605-yard performance by USF quarterback Quinton Flowers. Flowers nearly won by himself, evening up the game at 42 with a score and two-point conversion, but the game went full coronary as UCF’s Mike Hughes returned the ensuing kickoff for a touchdown.

Breathless, all over the place, and actually important in the larger shape of things. Basically a perfect game, if you have the right medical professionals on hand.

Every year produces great games. But not every year produces great championship games.

We are getting a little spoiled. The 2013 national title game was the No. 3 game of the year, the 2015 title game was No. 3, and the 2016 title game was No. 1. You could have made a case that this year’s finale deserved the top spot, too.

Midway through, it didn’t seem a top-100 appearance was likely. Georgia led 13-0, and Alabama’s offense was so putrid that Nick Saban’s decision to sub out quarterback Jalen Hurts for Tua Tagovailoa didn’t seem like a panic move — the opposite would have felt more so. But it changed everything.

What made this title game so unique was the constant sense of false finality.

Fate’s lurching indecision makes college football’s best moments spectacular. You can’t lurch much more than this game did in the second half and overtime.

The only reason the title game isn’t No. 1 is because a week before, in Pasadena, Georgia played in another Playoff game of plot twists. Only in this one, the first half wasn’t forgettable.

With Heisman quarterback Baker Mayfield and running back Rodney Anderson, Oklahoma proved it had 2017’s best offense by carving through an elite Georgia defense. The Sooners managed four touchdowns and a field goal on their first six possessions, and despite two Sony Michel touchdowns, they led, 31-14, in the closing seconds of the first half following a Mayfield touchdown reception. But an ill-advised squib kick went awry, gifting the Dawgs a kick, and Blankenship nailed a 55-yarder.

You knew Kirby Smart would figure some things out against OU’s offense — the question was how far down the Bulldogs would be. It wasn’t far enough. Georgia forced four punts and an interception on OU’s first five possessions, got long TD runs from Nick Chubb and Michel, and surged ahead, 38-31, on a touchdown catch by Javon Wims.

This game had slipped away from the Sooners. But seven minutes after Wims’ score, OU was up seven again. Mayfield engineered a perfect, 88-yard scoring drive, then Caleb Kelly stripped Michel, and Steven Parker raced 46 yards.

Chubb finished off a 59-yard scoring drive with a two-yard score, and the game was tied with 55 seconds left. OU got near midfield, and we went to overtime.

OU’s defense spent itself, giving up just one score in the final four drives of regulation and stopping Georgia for a three-and-out to start OT. Blankenship’s 38-yard field goal was good, and the Sooners tied with a kick instead of going for it on fourth-and-1.

The non-gamble was costly. OU stalled out again, and Lorenzo Carter blocked the field goal attempt. Two plays later, Michel sent Georgia to the national title game.

Read back on the rest of our top 100 games of the season: