Like them or hate them, and chances are you hate them unless you went there, No. 2 Alabama likely clinched a College Football Playoff berth thanks to its 29-15 win Saturday over No. 18 Florida in the SEC Championship Game.
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Based on records, rankings and matchups, it is hard to project any two-loss team other than Stanford making enough headway in Sunday’s final rankings to become a playoff team.
This year’s College Football Playoff and New Year’s Six field will be announced in just a few hours.
As things stand, No. 3 Oklahoma (11-1), the Big 12 champion, is the only team within the projected four-team playoff bracket with an open date Saturday. Ohio State is idle and still has an outside shot if they get help. So, which programs will take the other three? Stanford controlled the game against the five-loss Trojans more than Michigan State did against the No. 4 and undefeated Hawkeyes, but there’s no chance that win against that opponent moves them against of Michigan State who beat an undefeated team. So the math is pretty simple here: win this game and you’re going to a major bowl game to take on one of the best teams in the country.
Case against: The only way Clemson was not going to make the CFP was if it lost to North Carolina (and even then, it still may have snuck in). A matchup with the champion of the American Athletic Conference is certainly on the table. But the eye-test was not there in a game where Ohio State played its worst game of the year and maybe under Urban Meyer. Now the Buckeyes have to hope that its resume will stand on its own, with one loss and not two, as Stanford tries to make a point in beating a four-loss USC team and prove that beating a. 667 team twice will forgive two losses in a game where “winning games” should matter most. If Clemson doesn’t win the national championship, it will be because a team beats the Tigers on the field, not because the committee leaves them out. Odds are that Florida won’t get chosen for the playoff if it wins the SEC title, and a second loss would probably knock Alabama out.
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RICHMOND 48, WILLIAM & MARY 13: Jacobi Green ran for 141 yards and three touchdowns to lead Richmond (9-3) over visiting William & Mary (9-4) in an FCS second-round playoff game. Particularly in the SEC and ACC title games. So, as you can see, this game could wreak a lot of havoc on the playoff. These two teams are very evenly matched, as they each average 33 points a game, around 400 yards of total offense, and around 340 yards allowed on defense.
