2024-25 College Football Playoff: Joel Klatt's quarterfinals picks, preview

The first quarterfinal round of the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff has arrived!

Each of the four games will be played as a bowl game — the Fiesta Bowl, Peach Bowl, Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl — at a neutral location on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day. If I had my say, the Rose Bowl would serve as the national championship game on Jan. 1 each season, but that spiel is for another time.

Let's get into these four games, though. We had another good showing of making picks against the spread in the first round, going 3-1. That improved our record to 51-32 in our picks against the spread this season. 

Here are my thoughts and picks for each of the four games. 

I think we can all agree that Penn State is playing its best football right now. Even in its recent loss to Oregon, Penn State had one of its best performances in a game against a legitimate top-five team in quite some time. We've seen Penn State struggle against Ohio State and Michigan in recent years before nearly taking down the Buckeyes earlier this season.

Penn State is getting closer. The naysayers might not want to hear that, but it's true. The way PSU played against SMU signaled that this group is ready for the stage. This team is better than Boise State. As good as the story has been, it's still a Group of 5 team that doesn't have a roster nearly as good as Penn State's. It's not playing as well as PSU, either.

At this point, Penn State looks like it's playing as well as anyone in the country. This team has a strong chance of reaching the title game. Offensively, the Nittany Lions scored 37 and put up over 500 yards in their Big Ten Championship Game loss. Defensively, they locked up the Mustangs in their first-round win with two pick-sixes and only 10