2018–19 College Football Playoff

The 2018–19 College Football Playoff was a single-elimination postseason tournament that determined the national champion of the 2018 NCAA Division I FBS football season. It was the fifth edition of the College Football Playoff (CFP) and involved the top four teams in the country as ranked by the College Football Playoff poll playing in two semifinals, with the winners of each advancing to the national championship game. Each participating team was the champion of its respective conference: No. 1 Alabama from the Southeastern Conference, No. 2 Clemson from the Atlantic Coast Conference, No. 3 Notre Dame, an FBS independent, and No. 4 Oklahoma from the Big 12 Conference.

The playoff bracket's semifinal games were held at the Cotton Bowl Classic and the Orange Bowl on December 29, 2018, part of the season's slate of bowl games. The Cotton Bowl semifinal saw Clemson defeat Notre Dame, 30–3, and the Orange Bowl semifinal saw Alabama defeat Oklahoma by eleven points. By virtue of their victories, Alabama and Clemson advanced to the national championship game, held on January 7 in Santa Clara, California. The title game was a rematch of the national championship games in 2016 and 2017 and the 2018 Sugar Bowl semifinal. In the championship game, Clemson defeated Alabama, 44–16, to win their second CFP national championship and their third national championship in school history.

Both semifinals were among the six most-watched cable broadcasts of the calendar year, with the Orange Bowl's 10.4 Nielsen rating narrowly topping the Cotton Bowl's 10.3 rating. Despite the 26.97 million national championship viewers, the game received the lowest rating of any national championship game since 2012.