FORT WORTH, Texas — TCU has been the Cinderella story of the 2022-2023 college football season.
But it seems the clock struck midnight before the Horned Frogs' College Football Playoff National Championship game against Georgia on Monday.
By the time the clock mercifully ran out on the game, Stetson Bennett had led his team from Athens, Georgia, to a 65-7 win over Max Duggan and the boys from Fort Worth.
And, no, it was never really been close.
Like, at all.
That said, Hypnotoad magic be damned, oddsmakers never really expected it would be a close game, either. Heading into Monday's game at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, sportsbooks were giving the Dawgs a 13-point edge over the Frogs.
But TCU's loss was far, faw worse than even that.
How bad was it, though? Is it possible TCU could've suffered the worst blowout in NCAA football title game history?
In a word: Yes.
Georgia's 58-point win over TCU is unequivocally the largest blowout in college football championship history -- CFP or BCS. In fact, according to ESPN Stats & Info, it's the largest margin of victory in any bowl game in college football history, period.
In terms of national title games, that's way ahead of even the second-place finisher, No. 1 USC's 36-point win in a 55-19 route over No. 2 Oklahoma in the 2005 BCS Orange Bowl at the end of the 2004 season.
For context, here's a year-by-year look at the score of each college football title game dating back to the BCS's first year in 1998 (even though the game was played in 1999) and running through each of the current CFP system's games up to this year.
Year-by-year scoring differentials in college football title games:
- 1998: 7 points. Tennessee 23-Florida State 16 (BCS)
- 1999: 17 points. Florida State 46, Virginia Tech 29 (BCS)
- 2000: 11 points. Oklahoma 13, Florida State 2 (BCS)
- 2001: 23 points. Miami 37, Nebraska 14, (BCS)
- 2002: 7 points. Ohio State 31, Miami 24 (BCS)
- 2003: 7 points. LSU 21, Oklahoma 14 (BCS)
- 2004: 36 points. USC 55, Oklahoma 19 (BCS)
- 2005: 3 points. Texas 41, USC 38 (BCS)
- 2006: 27 points. Florida 41, USC 14 (BCS)
- 2007: 14 points. LSU 38, Ohio State 14 (BCS)
- 2008: 10 points. Florida 21. Oklahoma 14 (BCS)
- 2009: 16 points. Alabama 37, Texas 21 (BCS)
- 2010: 3 points. Auburn 22, Oregon 19 (BCS)
- 2011: 21 points. Alabama 21, LSU 0 (BCS)
- 2012: 28 points. Alabama 48, Notre Dame 14 (BCS)
- 2013: 3 points. Florida State 34, Auburn 31 (BCS)
- 2014: 22 points. Ohio State 42, Oregon 20 (CFP)
- 2015: 5 points. Alabama 45, Clemson 40 (CFP)
- 2016: 4 points. Clemson 35, Alabama 31 (CFP)
- 2017: 3 points. Alabama 26, Georgia 23 (CFP)
- 2018: 28 points. Clemson 44, Alabama 16 (CFP)
- 2019: 17 points. LSU 42, Clemson 25 (CFP)
- 2020: 28 points. Alabama 52, Ohio State 24 (CFP)
- 2021: 15 points. Georgia 33, Alabama 18 (CFP)
- 2022: 58 points. Georgia 65, TCU 7 (CFP)