COLUMBUS, Ohio – Aren’t you entertained?

No, probably not.

Four College Football Playoff first-round games, four results of at least two points. Two of them were complete failures (in State College and Columbus), a third was a dud brought closer by two late touchdowns (in South Bend), and a fourth in Austin was our only exciting moment in the fourth quarter (thanks, Clemson) .

Here in Columbus, the Buckeyes asked us a few questions after a 42-17 win over Tennessee:

Why couldn’t they do that against Michigan?

Are they the favorites for overall victory again?

Maybe they are! After all, no other college squad is more talented, as they reminded us Saturday night as they capped college football’s first playoff games on campus.

Let’s take a look at how ugly this got so quickly. Ohio State’s first punt came with four minutes left in the second quarter. Tennessee’s first pass came six minutes into the second quarter. Suddenly it was 21-0, and the more than 25,000 Tennessee fans who headed north were left angry and shivering in colder temperatures below 20 degrees.

The Buckeyes (11-2) showed what they could do when it came to cooking and, boy, did they cook. By “cooking,” we mean targeting two of the most explosive and talented receivers in the country. Jeremiah Smith and Emeka Egbuka paced the Vols for 11 catches and nearly 200 yards.

With an Ohio State defensive front swarming with first-year starter Nico Iamaleava, the Buckeyes were well on their way to a victory that should lower the heat in the Ryan Day pressure cooker from simmering to less simmering. Even Day later admitted that he and the coaching staff described Saturday’s game as “more aggressive” than the last game here against Michigan.

“You are defined by how you deal with adversity in life,” he said. “To see how they reacted, they looked into their eyes.”

Next up is a rematch against Big Ten champion Oregon in the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day – a glorious matchup between a team with the best record in college football and a team with the most talented roster in college football.

In their last meeting in October, the Ducks won 32-31 in a last-second thriller in Eugene. Whether these two should meet again this early in a 12-team playoff is certainly a question worth pondering.

But unfortunately that’s exactly what the format offers. Instead of seeding teams based on the CFP Selection Committee’s rankings, the format calls for the four top-ranked conference champions to be seeded numbers 1-4 – a rule that, while understandable as an incentive for league champions, is seeded leads to an unbalanced settlement.

For example, Ohio State, ranked No. 6 by the committee, was seeded eighth and will now face the top seed in the quarterfinals. Look for the format to change, perhaps starting with this very seeding rule granting byes only to conference champions, as explained in this story last week.

But back to these glitches.

The ACC was eliminated in the first round, its champion was defeated by the second-place SEC, and its runner-up was destroyed by the second-place Big Ten (if you’re debating the strength of the conference, these results should help). The third-best team in the Big Ten defeated the third-best team in the SEC in Columbus. And Notre Dame handled the fourth-best team in the Big Ten quite easily.

In total, the winners scored 145 points and the losers scored 68. All higher seeded teams and home teams won.

Chalk they call it.

That doesn’t necessarily mean those teams — especially SMU and Indiana — should have missed the playoff field. Maybe it just means that, at least this year in college football, the gap between these great teams and these good teams is larger than we first thought.

This isn’t entirely new. Don’t you remember all those CFP semifinals over the last decade? Fourteen of the 20 semi-final matches ended with at least two points. Eight of those were at least three touchdown blowouts.

It happens.

But what it tells us, as someone here in the press box at Ohio Stadium whispered to this writer: “Maybe this will show everyone that we shouldn’t expand anymore.”

Fourteen teams? Sixteen?

Maybe not.

And it’s now up to Boise State and Arizona State to prevent a nightmare for many college football fans and stakeholders: an All-SEC/Big Ten/Notre Dame semifinal.

The Sun Devils face Texas in the Peach Bowl and the Broncos face Penn State in the Fiesta. Boise State and ASU were ranked 9th and 12th by the committee, but were given the third and fourth spots due to the aforementioned pesky conference title rule.

Can you deliver? Since they are underdogs compared to the sport’s big brands, they will be met with great enthusiasm across the country.

Meanwhile, in Pasadena, we’re seeing what many expected in the preseason to be perhaps a national title game: Oregon vs. Ohio State.

It’s a delicious duel against the backdrop of the sunset over the San Gabriel Mountains. As midnight struck here in Columbus, Rose Bowl officials prepared dozens of individually cut roses to be given to Ohio State players and coaches.

What a difference does three weeks make? The last game here ended with an embarrassing brawl at midfield and a shocking three-touchdown loss to underdog Michigan – the fourth straight loss to the Wolverines in this heated rivalry series that seemed to turn off some fans here.

“You don’t just walk away from the game,” Day said. “You recognize the problems and let the players have their say. They have put together a plan to address these issues. Saying it doesn’t bother you, it does. These guys are very proud.”

Despite the efforts of Ohio State administrators, many Buckeyes fans sold their tickets to this playoff battle. Visiting teams receive 3,500 tickets to CFP first-round games. The Vols brought at least 25,000 spectators and spruced up this 102,000-seat stadium in orange. There were more guests than some longtime Ohio State reporters had ever seen at the venue.

By the start of the fourth quarter, many of them were gone, heading into the chilly night down Interstate 71 after suffering the worst mishap of the first round. After all, OSU outgained Tennessee 473-256 yards playing its third string – third string – Quarterback in the final minutes.

As a final farewell on that cold Saturday evening, the Ohio State stadium operators played over the loudspeakers a familiar refrain to the Orange-wearing crowd: Rocky Top.

They went back to Tennessee. And heading to LA go the Buckeyes, who claimed the sport’s most stunning victory of this historic weekend.