MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – Only two years ago, Michigan State lost a close early season game to Notre Dame and was effectively out of the national championship chase right when that game ended.

The Spartans won all 10 of their remaining games and finished 13-1.

Still, that single loss – and it wasn’t even a bad loss – doomed them.

That’s the way it was in college football for decades, a lone defeat against a good opponent often being enough to deny a team its shot at playing for the national championship. And if the old models that decided national titles were still in place today, there’s almost no way Michigan State and Oklahoma would still be championship contenders.

“I think that’s probably fair,” Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops said.

Yet here they are, in College Football Playoff semifinal games on Thursday and beneficiaries of a system that is more forgiving than its predecessors.

Technically, there’s only been one consensus national champion – Notre Dame in 1977 – that won the title in a season where it lost to an opponent that finished with a record below .500.

No team, at least since the advent of The Associated Press first awarding its national championship in 1936, has ever lost to someone with a 5-7 record or worse and won it all.

That might change now.

This year, Oklahoma lost to a Texas team that finished 5-7. MSU lost to a Nebraska team that finished 5-7, even though some late calls were debatable.