Ranking college football’s Championship Weekend final scores by surprising-ness

So. We think we know what’s going to happen now, right? The one-loss, best-offense-in-the-country Oklahoma Sooners are going to go to the College Football Playoff alongside unbeaten Alabama, Clemson, and Notre Dame, right? That’s how this is going to go? Two-loss, conference non-champion Georgia doesn’t have enough of a case, and Ohio State didn’t beat Northwestern by nearly enough, right?

Championship Weekend was tense and exciting, a fun 30 or so hours of football that set the table for Sunday’s CFP and bowl selections.

S&P+ had an odd week. It was as dialed in as ever, with an absolute error (the average difference between projection and reality) of just 7.8 points per game in FBS vs. FBS games, about as low as I can remember. (Anything below 12 or 13 is pretty great.) Vegas, however, was also pretty dialed in, so S&P+ went just 7-7 against the spread. Oh well.

Still, whether the numbers are dialed in or not, there are always surprises.

Using the S&P+ projections as a guide, let’s look at which games played out as expected and which ones very, very much did not.

(Rankings listed below are from the most recent CFP rankings.)

It looked for a moment like Northwestern was going to Northwestern its way into an upset win, but the Buckeyes pulled away late.

The best team in the Mountain West had to win on the road to take the crown and did so ... eventually.

OU evened the turnover battle and put itself on the doorstep of the College Football Playoff.

The sequels continue to be every bit as dramatic as the original.

UAB went from dead to C-USA champion in two years. That just doesn’t make any damn sense.

Granted, S&P+ expected more points, but it had the margin pretty much nailed if not for a pick six.

Down big with their backup quarterback, the Knights not only come back but go on to win by double digits. They are un-killable.

A heartbreaker for Buffalo, which led by double digits and looked unstoppable but lost its offensive rhythm and couldn’t do a damn thing to get it back.

Good for Pitt for responding to early disasters and a 14-0 deficit to make it 14-10 nearing half. It didn’t stay that way, but the Panthers did give their fans a reason to cheer for a moment.

Man. I cannot properly communicate how big an upset this would have been if Drake — no scholarships, 219th in Sagarin, 41-point Vegas underdog, lost to Stetson, and got blown out by Montana — had been able to to pull this one off. Alas.

The ultimate in back-door covers: ECU, down 58, kicks a field goal on the last play of the game. They not only avoid a shutout; they also move the total from under to over. A lot of money changed hands with the most pointless field goal of the entire season.