You see, the BCS still lives inside the playoff. Although the College Football Playoff committee might not be too impressed with this conference’s elite teams, America can still enjoy a few great Big 12 football this weekend.
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It’s not a guarantee, but should the Irish win the next two weeks and enter the Stanford game still in the Top 4, their position will be strong.
The final four teams that would be in the playoff according to the College Football Playoff committee if the season ended today are: No. 1 Clemson, No. 2 Alabama, No. 3 Ohio State and No. 4 Notre Dame.
The Tigers are once again No. 1 in the latest College Football Playoff rankings, released Tuesday evening. Doctson injured his left wrist after a catch in the first half of TCU’s loss at Oklahoma State on November 7.
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Clemson moved to 10-0 on the season this past Saturday with a 37-27 win at Syracuse.
In the pool are Tampa, Nashville, Jacksonville, Florida, Memphis, Houston and Charlotte, North Carolina.
The College Football Playoff semifinals begin December 31 at the Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl. Ohio State handled their business against IL and face their toughest test to date when ninth ranked MI State visits Columbus this week.
“Certainly if Oklahoma had won that game they would have been ranked differently”, Long said.
Meanwhile, the remaining venues that host the New Year’s Six bowl games – Rose, Sugar, Fiesta and Peach – will select the highest ranked remaining teams that fill their criteria. Our 26th straight purple-and-blue loss to the Mount Union Purple Raiders, the No. 1 team in Division III, came Saturday by a fairly tight 36-3, and ended our hopes for the 32-team playoffs, as that loss to playoff-bound Ohio Northern really cost us.
Alabama continues to dominate every opponent in its path and is the most fearsome team in the country. Over his last four games, Rudolph has thrown for nine scores and just one interception.
So yes, the Buckeyes home stretch is notably hard.
MI will close out the season with wins over Penn State (7-3), Ohio State (10-0) and a Big Ten Championship win over Iowa.
It’s probably shocking to see the Florida Gators here, but read closely. In that case, the Sooners should join (most likely) the SEC, Big Ten, and ACC champions in the playoff.
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The Naval Academy, USC and Clemson were the Irish opponents ranked in Top 25 poll. In that game though, their chances are better than you may think. Their defense is simply dominant, which gives them a shot to win week in and week out even with a mediocre offense. Losing to Alabama would drop them even further, perhaps behind LSU. Oklahoma’s only loss this season was to the Texas Longhorns in the Red River Showdown. Now they just have to finish the job. The Pac-12 will need a lot of help to avoid being left out of the final four the way the Big 12 was last season. “As we said last week, they’re not a flashy team, but they’re consistent on both sides of the ball”.
