If you go back and look at that game – I’ve been on both sides of that – where there are nights where you can’t just hold onto the ball.
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The first two times were a part of the old Bowl Championship Series (BCS) system, but this time No. 1 Clemson and No. 4 Oklahoma are set to meet in the 2015 College Football Playoff (CFP) Semifinal at the Capital One Orange Bowl on December 31, 2015, at Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fla., at 4 p.m.
Michigan State, which rallied to beat Iowa 16-13 on Saturday night to claim its second Big Ten championship in the past three seasons, will be seeking their first national championship since 1966.
The winners will play for the national championship on January 11 in Glendale, Arizona. No. 1 Clemson vs. No. 4 Oklahoma starts at 4 p.m. on December 31 in the Orange Bowl; and No. 2 Alabama vs. No. 3 Michigan State starts at 8 p.m. on December 31 in the Cotton Bowl. The play was dubbed Michigan State’s Miracle, but in some ways it symbolized the Spartans’ greatest traits.
The Crimson Tide are No. 3 in scoring defense and No. 2 in total defense.
Those games will be played on New Year’s Eve.
Nick Saban’s team is only one of the four selected to play December 31, and the Crimson Tide is neither the No. 1-ranked team nor the defending champion.
The rest of the rankings and pairings for the Rose Bowl Game presented by Northwestern Mutual, Allstate Sugar Bowl, BattleFrog Fiesta Bowl and Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl will be revealed later Sunday afternoon.
Moving the Sooners to fourth can be justified by the Spartans’ entire body of work, which includes wins against the Hawkeyes, Michigan, Ohio State and OR, along with a conference championship.
In the end, the College Football Playoff has two national semifinals that double as reunions – the first quirky, the second customary. “To win the Big Ten championships he’s won and have the kind of consistency and performance they’ve had over the last few years is pretty phenomenal”. No, because I don’t think there was a reaction in Tuscaloosa, while Clemson threw a big pizza party, and there was general happiness on the Oklahoma and Michigan State campuses.
Alabama: RB Derrick Henry broke Herschel Walker’s SEC single-season record with 1,986 yards rushing. Watson, who is a finalist for the Walter Camp, Maxwell and Davey O’Brien Awards, led the ACC in passing yards and passing touchdowns. The Spartans’ top three rushers – Scott, Gerald Holmes and Madre London – have a combined 1,614 yards and 22 TDs. A big difference from last season, when the committee had to choose from Ohio State, Baylor and TCU, and ticked off the Big 12 by jumping the Buckeyes past the Bears and Frogs in the final rankings. The Spartans won the Cotton Bowl, the only one for a Big Ten other than Ohio State’s over Texas A&M in 1987. The Tide also opened the 2012 season, their last championship game, in the Labor Day weekend opener at the National Football League stadium. Smart headed straight to Athens after the SEC championship game in Atlanta on Saturday night for a final interview before being named Mark Richt’s successor Sunday.
The bowl will mark just the second time Georgia and Penn State have met in football. It was the second-largest Cotton Bowl comeback – Notre Dame trailed by 22 points with 7:37 left before beating Houston 35-34 in 1979. The Tigers trounced the Sooners 40-6 in a game that did not feature Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson and Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield.
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Because Alabama has won three national titles in the previous six seasons and remains the game’s looming monster for as long as Saban decides it is. 636 that ranks fifth among all schools that have played 15 or more postseason games.
