On Saturday, Oklahoma rested with its Big 12 title while Michigan State upgraded its resume by muscling past previously unbeaten and No. 4 Iowa, 16-13, on an extraordinary, 22-play, 82-yard drive through nine minutes of the fourth quarter. The Tigers are 45-7 since losing the Orange Bowl at the end of the 2011 season….
Advertisement
The Oklahoma-Clemson victor will advance to the College Football Playoff Championship on Monday, Jan. 11, in Glendale, Ariz., against the victor of the other New Year’s Eve playoff semifinal between No. 2 Alabama and No. 3 Michigan State in the Cotton Bowl, which will also air on ESPN.
Close to 30,000 Tigers fans showed up to Memorial Stadium for a slice of pizza and a chance to celebrate Clemson’s No. 1 ranking, fulfilling a promise Swinney had made last month.
Alabama (12-1) remained at No. 2 after defeating Florida 29-15 to capture back-to-back SEC titles.
Oklahoma is arguably the hottest team in the country, winning its last seven games by an average score of 52-19. Saban spent three seasons as the head coach of the Spartans back in the late 1990s.
But remember a year ago, when Ohio State squeezed into the College Football Playoff door just as it slammed shut?
Alcorn State clinched its invite by winning the SWAC championship Saturday, 49-21 over Grambling State. “Little differences in resumes, how they won the games”.
The selection came down to this: Four of the five power conferences had undefeated or one-loss champions, while two-loss Stanford won the Pac-12 Conference.
Clemson’s Jadar Johnson (18) reaches for North Carolina’s Cameron Albright (31) during the first half of the Atlantic Coast Conference championship NCAA college football game in Charlotte, N.C., Saturday, Dec. 5, 2015.
Of course, the coach who set all of that in motion is Nick Saban, who left Michigan State in 2000 but has seen his former assistant build a true national powerhouse that he now must reckon with in the Cotton Bowl on December 31 (8 p.m. ET, ABC).
The four teams in line for the playoffs appear to be Clemson, Alabama, Oklahoma and Michigan State. Dantonio worked under Saban at Michigan State from 1995-99, and he had the unenviable task of coaching the secondary, the position group Alabama coach Saban works with most closely to this day.
Advertisement
Iowa dropped to No. 5 in the final CFP rankings, two spots ahead of Ohio State. Waiting for the Crimson Tide is the No. 3-seeded Michigan State Spartans of the Big Ten. Despite being the No. 4 seed in the playoff, it’s possible no team is playing as well as Oklahoma right now. No, no. My point is this: One of these four teams is going to be the 2015 national champion.
