He indicated that by Sunday’s final meeting of the committee, no other team was close to cracking the top four.
Advertisement
Clemson will face Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl while in the Cotton Bowl Alabama will go against Michigan State in the national semifinals.
Alabama, which won its second consecutive SEC championship Saturday with a 29-15 win over against Florida, finished No. 2 in the committee’s final rankings. Then, No. 2 Alabama will square off with No. 3 Michigan State in what should be a rugged contest between two great defenses in the nightcap at 8 p.m. ET in the Cotton Bowl.
“We stayed focused, we stayed the course, we stayed committed to our mentality and our preparation each and every week”, Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said on ESPN. Our leadership was phenomenal. The rest of the champions are like the rest of us – flawed grinders that find the zone at the right moment.
Can Clemson keep holding off comebacks?
To fix its Ole Miss problem, Alabama got some help from Arkansas, which need a stunning bounce-pass lateral play to beat the Rebels in overtime and clear a path for the Tide to win the SEC. Is Michigan State out of miracles?
The Crimson Tide are No. 3 in scoring defense and No. 2 in total defense.
The announcement lacked drama; committee chairman Jeff Long said Clemson was the “clear-cut” No. 1 seed in a field that was easier to set than it was in last season’s inaugural year. That same day, No. 1 Clemson plays No. 4 Oklahoma in Miami, Florida. We knew that we were in, just didn’t know where exactly we’d be playing or the position. “This was insane. our fans are incredible”.
Meanwhile, the remaining games that compose the New Year’s Six access bowl games – Rose, Sugar, Fiesta, Peach – will select the highest ranked remaining teams that fill their criteria.
Clemson capped a 13-0 regular season by beating North Carolina 45-37 on Saturday in the ACC championship game in Charlotte, N.C. Oklahoma (11-1) was idle, and clinched the Big 12 championship on November 28. The top two teams, Alabama and Clemson, won their conference title games, while No. 3 Oklahoma did not play. He said the Spartans’ “body of work was just slightly ahead of Oklahoma”. Ask Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban why Henry carried the ball 90 times in the last two games, and he will tell you that’s the best way for his team to win.
Michigan St.: Four-game bowl winning streak matches the longest in Big Ten history and is longest active streak in FBS…. Then the Spartans beat both on the last play of both games and survived a scare from Iowa on Saturday night by piecing together a 22-play fourth-quarter drive that won the Big Ten-and punched the Spartans’ ticket to the playoff. The Sooners are aiming for their first national title since 2000. He surpassed 100 yards on the ground in four of the last five games.
A college football season filled with fantastic finishes led to a sleepy selection Sunday.
The victor of this game meets either Alabama or Michigan State for the CFP national championship. The Big 12’s champion would’ve seemed like an unlikely playoff selection on the October afternoon the Sooners lost to Texas. 5 and 6, respectively, in the final committee rankings.
Alabama (12-1) is the champion of the SEC and is making its second straight appearance in the playoffs. Stanford moves up to No. 5 after winning the Pac-12 title. Strong performances against Ohio State and Iowa late in the season, however, suggest the Spartans have figured it out.
Advertisement
More bowl pairings will be revealed throughout Sunday, including those for USC and UCLA.
