If your conference holds a championship game, you better be in it to have any hope of reaching the four-team playoff.
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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.
You couldn’t have asked for a more intriguing matchup outside of the College Football Playoff, as this rematch of the 2006 Fiesta Bowl ought to be mighty entertaining.
Selection Sunday was a snoozer. They would have several teams in the top ten and losses looked even better when you had so many solid teams ranked so highly and after winning 7 consecutive titles in the BCS era the formula they had worked.
Committee chairman Jeff Long said that the Tigers were the clear-cut top team in the final rankings.
The Big Ten champion Spartans completed last season on New Year’s Day playing in their first Cotton Bowl. Joni Ernst tweeted her congratulations to the Hawkeyes for beating Michigan State in the Big Ten championship game, although she probably should have waited until it was over, since Iowa lost.
No loud complaints about that move. This is the eighth week Michigan State will be ranked No. 1, moving the Spartans into a tie with West Virginia and St. John’s on the all-time list. They are 12-6 in Orange Bowl games – oh, and by the way, four of their seven national championships have come in the Orange Bowl, including their most recent one in 2000, Stoops’ second season at Oklahoma. Officials tell news that the College Football Playoff National Championship Presented by AT&T will be January 11 in Glendale, Arizona at the University of Phoenix Stadium.
Still, the lack of debate over the playoff was a bit of a letdown after the topsy-turvy regular season.
Saban is 5-3 in bowl games at Alabama, earning wins over Notre Dame (2013 BCS National Championship Game), LSU (2012 BCS National Championship Game), Michigan State (2011 Capital One Bowl), Texas (2010 BCS National Championship) and Colorado (2007 Independence Bowl). Oklahoma seeks to make a clean sweep of every team that beat them in 2014. “I wouldn’t know how the committee would view that”.
The matchup is also delectable because Alabama opened as a nine-point favorite, ideal for Michigan State, a program that likes the underdog tag more than Rocky Balboa.
For Alabama, it was a five-turnover setback to MS at Bryant-Denny Stadium. The Tigers packed a reported 20,000-plus fans into Death Valley on Sunday to eat, celebrate the team’s accomplishments this season and learn its bowl fate. No. 23 Cincinnati is at No. 12 Xavier on Saturday.
Michigan State’s star quarterback Connor Cook is still battling an injured throwing shoulder, and MSU is also only in the position it is thanks to a fluke last-second play against Michigan in October. Iowa didn’t win its conference and didn’t play Ohio State or MI.
Michigan State jumped from third to a runaway first following losses last week by then-Nos. Three of those wins were on the road.
The committee members, which include athletic directors, conference commissioners, former coaches and players, and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, serve on staggered three-year terms.
From the start of the College Football Playoff rankings, the Tigers were the No. 1 team, and the selection committee never wavered.
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“You need to play non-conference games that test your team against out-of-conference opponents, and I do think that’s demonstrated throughout our ranking”, Long said.
