The stage is set for this years college football playoff and this years cotton bowl features #2 Alabama against #3 MI state.
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Perception also matters. The Big 10, which had five teams in the top 15 in Tuesday’s rankings (No. 4 Iowa, No. 5 Michigan State, No. 6 Ohio State, No. 14 Northwestern and No. 15 Michigan) was perceived as stronger than the Big 12, which had three other teams ranked – No. 11 TCU, No. 12 Baylor and No. 17 OSU. They are a different team.
Clemson defeated North Carolina on Saturday to win the ACC Championship.
Iowa trumped Ohio State by a very simple formula.
Long said bumping Michigan State past Oklahoma had nothing to do with avoiding the possibility of having the Sooners play close to home in the Dallas area.
“Whatever game we get, we’re going to treat it like it’s the national championship”, linebacker Cole Fisher said. Stanford might be in the playoff if not for one bad morning (Pacific Time) against Northwestern in September. Iowa drops two spots to sixth after its first loss.
“We’ve got it down pretty good right now with the four teams….”
FAMILIAR SETTING: Michigan State and Alabama have already played in AT&T Stadium this year. They are the obviously right choices. They got in because they earned their way. The Irish’s plan for reaching the Playoff is simple enough: win at a Playoff contender’s level, and they’re in.
To no one’s surprise, the Michigan State basketball team is the new No. 1 in all the land.
This is how it is supposed to work.
“He’s certainly done a better job than I ever did there, I can tell you that”, said Saban, who went 34-24-1 at Michigan State and noted Sunday that the program was on probation when he arrived.
The college football playoffs show begins at noon on ESPN. The Playoff retains that, while providing a fairer format for determining a champion. A lot. You don’t even need to win, as long as you push the victor to the limit. Sure, sometimes a team will overwhelm everybody. The Tide and Spartans have played only once, with Alabama winning the Capital One Bowl 49-7 after the 2010 season.
“You better give us 110 scholarships then….” 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.
Had neither of those snaps been fumbled and recovered by OR, a 12-1 Stanford forces itself into the conversation – and possibly forces someone else out. Those snaps were botched. Will the time off allow many of Notre Dame’s injured stars to return to the lineup?
The betting line places MSU as nine-and-a-half-point underdogs to the Crimson Tide, but as Bacon points out, the Spartans were “13-point underdogs against Ohio State”. The Crimson Tide easily handled Florida on Saturday, winning the conference for the second straight year and essentially punching its ticket to the College Football Playoff.
No. 13 Northwestern will play in the Outback Bowl for the second time in school history and the first time since the 2009 season. Michigan State’s lone loss was to Nebraska, which like the Longhorns, were 5-7. Four teams feels right.
Swinney had wide grin on his face most of the time, and raised both fists in the air, pumping them to the fans’ applause when Clemson was announced as the top seed.
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“Trust me when I say this, I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished so far, but watching the football final four yesterday and realizing in the last two years where some people were ranked at the beginning of the year and where they ended up, it has no bearing on things”, Izzo said. Next year we may be screaming at each other again.
