The trip will be easier this time.
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The Spartans (12-1) provided plenty of drama on Championship Saturday, with an epic game-winning drive to beat Iowa 16-13 in an old-school Big Ten championship game in Indianapolis that was only missing leather helmets.
Still, Pasadena is a precious consolation prize.
Like Ohio State last season, Oklahoma made a steep climb into the playoff. Of course the national semifinal holds a bit more intrigue than the rest of the Big Ten playing for bragging rights and consolation prizes. Each team lost once. In addition, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Penn State and Wisconsin collected bids as part of the largest and most diverse postseason lineup in conference history.
Alabama is the only repeat performer from last season’s inaugural playoff, which followed the sport’s 16-year marriage to a Bowl Championship Series title game. With a few exceptions, the right pinballs fell in the right slots, and logic was served.
As the four teams in the College Football Playoff were disclosed, starting with No. 1 Clemson and moving in reverse, Oklahoma receivers Durron Neal and Sterling Shepard were sitting together at the Sooners’ team gathering. The seeding is right, too. Alabama is making its ninth consecutive bowl appearance under head coach Nick Saban and the 12th straight overall for the school.
Each year is different.
The Sooners opened with a blowout of Iowa State before wrapping up the season with showdowns against No. 6 Baylor, No. 18 TCU and No. 11 Oklahoma State.
Led by top-ranked, and still undefeated Clemson, this year’s group consists of conference champions from the ACC, SEC, Big Ten and Big 12, and both head coach Dabo Swinney’s Tigers and head coach Nick Saban’s Crimson Tide were included in the committee’s first top-four of the season in Week 10.
But nobody could logically displace Oklahoma. I think they dropped Oklahoma partly because Michigan State earned that third spot… And what if Notre Dame didn’t lose to Stanford on a last-second field goal? Notre Dame also thought Texas and USC would be nationally prominent when those games were scheduled, but then those wins came up hollow.
In Clemson, South Carolina, thousands were in attendance to feast on the Tigers’ success and a whole lot of pizza pies. Meanwhile, Alabama has a 68% chance to beat No. 3 seed Michigan State.
Another obstacle to expansion might be ESPN’s 12-year, $7.3 billion contract to broadcast the playoff, which calls for the tournament to remain at four teams through 2026.
“That’s certainly the case in this game, just like it was in this last game against Jim McElwain and Florida and with Will at Auburn, and it will be when we play Kirby someday”. Teams with losing records should not be rewarded with bowl games.
This year, the first four teams out are more than a nuisance.
The season was an abject failure – at least by Oklahoma standards.
The Clemson Bulldogs have been the top-ranked college football program in the country since beating then #16 Florida State in early November.
A handful of former Richmond Senior football players will be participating in bowl games this season.
The Hawkeyes simply couldn’t block the fifth-year senior, and he will be a big focus for the Crimson Tide.
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“I’ve been around long enough to not put much merit into something that happens in December when you really want it to happen in March or April”, Izzo told the AP in a telephone interview Monday afternoon. Instead of accepting the fiction that a playoff would sabotage the bowls, the committee found a way to enhance them. As a result, Iowa gets a date with Stanford in Pasadena.
