2015–16 College Football Playoff

The 2015–16 College Football Playoff was a single-elimination postseason tournament that determined the national champion of the 2015 NCAA Division I FBS football season. It was the second 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 Clemson from the Atlantic Coast Conference, No. 2 Alabama from the Southeastern Conference, No. 3 Michigan State from the Big Ten Conference, and No. 4 Oklahoma from the Big 12 Conference.

The playoff bracket's semifinal games were held at the Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl Classic on New Year's Eve, part of the season's slate of bowl games. In the Orange Bowl semifinal, Clemson defeated Oklahoma by twenty points. The second semifinal, at the Cotton Bowl, saw Alabama shutout Michigan State, 38–0. As a result of their victories, Clemson and Alabama faced each other in the national championship game, held on January 11 in Glendale, Arizona. In that game, Alabama won by five points, giving them their first CFP national championship and their sixteenth claimed national championship in school history.

The playoff set streaming viewership records for the CFP, with both semifinals besting those of the previous year and the championship doing the same. Despite an overall viewership drop of 23 percent from the 2015 championship, this year's championship set a record for unique viewers for an ESPN college football broadcast and ranked third among broadcasts of all sports in that category. The championship game received a Nielsen rating of 15.8.