The College Football Playoff is 3 years old, which is apparently old enough to get some rematches going. If Alabama beats Washington, it’ll either face the team it beat in 2015’s Playoff or the team it lost to in 2014’s. Clemson and Ohio State have also met in a big bowl recently, while nobody has any particular grudge with Washington that I know of.
Ranking the 2016 College Football Playoff’s 6 REVENGE GAME storylines
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So let’s rank the mini-tournament’s six potential matchups by animosity, along with S&P+ projections to determine likelihood.
6. Clemson and Washington?The championship’s unlikeliest matchup, per S&P+
They’ve never met in football. No Chris Petersen team has ever played Clemson, and none of Dabo Swinney’s Alabama teams ever played Washington (the Tide did face the Huskies in a Sun Bowl a few years before Dabo arrived as a WR in 1990).
One mascot is a cat, and the other’s a dog? Both campuses have bodies of water? Not a lot to work with.
5. Ohio State and Washington? The championship’s second-unlikeliest matchup
They’ve played 11 times, only twice since 1995, never in the postseason, and without any special seasons getting wrecked.
The only two BEEF FACTORS in their series history: Ohio State holds an 8-3 edge, but Washington had the most stinging victory, in 1986. Those Buckeyes went 10-2 otherwise, with close losses to only top-10 Alabama and Michigan teams, but got blown out by final top-20 Washington in Seattle.
In 1996, UW lost to a Notre Dame team that included Urban Meyer as its WR coach. That’s all else I got.
4. Washington vs. Alabama The Peach Bowl semifinal
A major piece of history, but before our time. Bama beat Washington in the 1926 Rose Bowl, one of the most important cross-region battles in football history and the game that opened much of the country’s eyes to the quality of football being played in the south. It’s still in the Tide’s fight song 90 years later.
Now we’ve come full circle, and a win by a West Coast team over the sport’s southern tyrant would be just as big a narrative-smasher.
Bama also holds a 4-0 series edge overall.
3. Ohio State vs. ClemsonThe Fiesta Bowl semifinal
Clemson won the 2014 Orange Bowl, 40-35, involving many of the same coaches and some current players.
Meyer’s overall record in revenge games, if we count games like Ohio State’s 2012 win over Michigan as balancing out Florida’s 2007 loss: 13-2. The two: 2007 Auburn and 2010 Alabama, with the 2014 Playoff avenging the latter.
Both teams have since used that Orange Bowl as motivation, both right away and now.
“[Meyer’s revised mindset after that game] was: I want to be aggressive. I want to challenge, challenge, challenge,” Ohio State defensive coordinator Luke Fickell said this week. “We’re going to be aggressive as hell.”
“Our guys, when they watch [film] like that and see that paw on the side of the helmet, they relate to that. It’s different than watching that happen to Wisconsin,” Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables said. “They get up on the edge of that seat when it happened to us in the Orange Bowl.”
Another reminder: Tajh Boyd, the QB who lit the Buckeyes up for 500 yards, has stepped in for Clemson as a Fiesta Bowl scout team QB.
2. Clemson vs. AlabamaThe championship’s second-likeliest matchup
If you get a shot less than 365 days after they tell you “We just beat the hell outta you,” traditional lyrics that lacked accuracy at the time? OOH BOY, you take it.
1. Saban vs. MeyerThe championship’s likeliest matchup
This generation’s two greatest coaches have faced four times, with neither of their teams ranking lower at the time than 2010’s No. 7 Florida. They’re both 2-2.
Meyer’s beaten two No. 1 Alabama teams on his way to national titles, once at Florida and once at Ohio State, and Saban did the same to Meyer’s Florida in 2009.
Meyer currently holds the Golden Ocelot of Spite, meaning it’s time to throw in Saban’s revenge record. He’s 10-2 in these at Alabama, was 7-1 at LSU, and at Michigan State (the only power-conference non-blue blood to employ either of these coaches for an extended period), lost three in a row only to a championship-level Michigan and Joe Tiller’s Purdue.
The only thing that could equal Saban vs. Meyer would be Meyer vs. Saban, and if you look at Ohio State’s likely 2017 roster, that rematch might not be a bad thing to go ahead and pencil in, if we wanna get way ahead of ourselves.
Elsewhere!
RIP to BYU’s Lavell Edwards, who built the unlikeliest national champion in the modern era and changed football.
Thursday’s bowls were headlined by Arkansas blowing a 24-0 lead, the kind of thing the Hogs were pretty good at this year.
The highlight of Arkansas’ day: a lineman’s brother wearing the family jersey in the stands despite going shirtless. The other lowlight: Arkansas’ tight end was suspended from the game, which is the Belk Bowl, after being accused of shoplifting at a Belk.
One play from that game took 12 minutes to review and was explained in the weirdest way possible, but appears to have been officiated correctly.
Per one report, some mid-majors are weighing the idea of a separate Playoff. We just happened to have this proposal ready to go.
Two headlines from Notre Dame’s ongoing brilliant 2016: Brian Kelly reportedly wants out but has no takers, and a top assistant just left for Cincinnati.
New Oregon DC Jim Leavitt’s contract allows him to leave for one job without a buyout: Bill Snyder’s.
One Playoff factor: Washington’s got the most consequential injury damage.
Bama’s team bus left Lane Kiffin behind at a Playoff event. Again.
No Bama players will ever sit out a bowl, according to a Bama player, because Bama’s always in the Playoff. Makes sense!
Someone tried to force some Weird Harbaugh by asking the Michigan coach over and over about bikinis. It didn’t work. You gotta let the Weird Harbaugh emerge naturally.
Never forget an A&M WR avenged a Kansas State DB’s teabagging by punching him in the crotch and scoring a TD on him.
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