Alabama over Ohio State is fine, and 3 more thoughts about the College Football Playoff selection
The College Football Playoff pairings were just announced. Here are some initial reactions.
Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
This has been a curious season, one in which the top two seeds in the College Football Playoff lost to 4-8 Syracuse and 7-5 Iowa State but swept through every good team on the schedule.
There wasn’t much separating any of the top-10 teams this year, and with that being the case, the committee was down to choosing between a) the team that lost by 12 on the road to another top-10 team and b) the team that lost by 15 at home to a playoff team and by 31 on the road to a seven-win, borderline-top 50 team. In that instance, it’s fine to choose the one that didn’t lay the biggest egg of anyone in the top 10, maybe top 20.
If Ohio State had gotten in, that would have been fine too. The Buckeyes have been the best team on paper and beat good Penn State and Wisconsin teams to win a good Big Ten. If the committee elected to reward that, it would have been hard to argue too vigorously. But this was a year in which three teams were obviously deserving, and two had flawed but nice résumés. The committee chose Team A over Team B. So be it.
2. Georgia vs. Oklahoma in the Rose Bowl? Fantastic.
It’s easy to be intrigued by Alabama-Clemson III, simply because of how these two programs have defined the college football landscape in the Playoff era. But in terms of aesthetics? In terms of intriguing matchups?
- Georgia and Oklahoma are two college football blue bloods who have somehow never played each other.
- Georgia has only played in the Rose Bowl once, and it was 75 years ago.
- Oklahoma has only played in the Rose Bowl once, and it was 16 years ago.
- Pretty shade of red vs. pretty shade of red. Huge fan base vs. huge fan base.
- Oklahoma’s offensive line vs. Georgia’s defensive front is delicious.
- Georgia’s nasty, exciting run game vs. the Sooners’ speedy, rapidly improving secondary could be fascinating.
- There’s nothing like huge games in the Rose Bowl.
Yes. All of this, yes. Beautiful college football coming right here.
3. Clemson has mastered a dangerous game and is probably your title favorite because of it.
The best way to figure out who the best team in college football is, is by looking at who dominates the most frequently. We try to turn things into a résumé battle — best win, second-best win, worst loss, etc. — but that all distracts us from the fact that games have scores and that a one-point win isn’t a 30-point win.
Clemson has been the exception to this rule over the last two years. In both 2016 and 2017, the Tigers seemed okay with getting by in energy-conservation mode. They’ll play a lot of guys, and once they’re up 10-14 points, they’ll throw it into second gear and wait to see if you’re capable of coming back. And once they have no choice, they’ll throw it into fifth gear and go from there.
This is dangerous as hell. In 2016, the Tigers nearly lost to Auburn, Troy, Louisville, and Florida State. They should have lost to NC State, and DID lose to Pitt. But once they lost to the Panthers, they beat two bowl teams (Wake Forest and South Carolina) by a combined 71 points, beat Virginia Tech in the ACC title game, and rolled to the national title.
In 2017, they tried to do the same thing. They beat Auburn by eight points and spent much of the Virginia Tech, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, and Florida State games in cruise control. About a week after I wrote this piece, they lost to Syracuse. They tinkered with the idea of losing to NC State once again.
And once they hit late-November, they once again hit the accelerator: 61-3 over The Citadel, 34-10 over South Carolina, and 38-3 over Miami. Obviously a matchup with Alabama is anything but a gimme, and there’s a very good case to make that the Tide have been the better team over the course of the entire season. But Clemson was certainly much hotter at the end of the year. We’ll see what the bowl break does, but despite once again dilly-dallying, the Tigers appear to be peaking when it counts the most. This isn’t nearly as easy as they’ve made it look.
4. Four Playoffs, four Alabama appearances.
Over the last nine seasons, Nick Saban’s Alabama Crimson Tide have ranked second, fourth, second, first, second, second, first, first, and, to date, second in S&P+. Over the last 40 years, only Bobby Bowden’s Florida State has been anywhere close to this consistent.
We can debate whether the committee should have let the Tide in if we really want to, but they’re in. And even though Clemson is smoking hot, let’s not pretend for one second like Bama doesn’t have a really, really solid shot at Saban’s fifth national title in Tuscaloosa.
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