After 14 weeks of play, an exciting championship weekend and much discussion, the selection committee made its decision for the New Year’s Eve slate of college football’s playoff games. It looks as follows:
Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl: No. 1 Alabama (13-0) versus No. 4 Washington (12-1).
PlayStation Fiesta Bowl: No. 2 Clemson (12-1) versus No. 3 Ohio State (11-1).
Penn State left out
Despite a 21-point come from behind 38-31 victory in Saturday’s Big Ten Championship game at Lucas Oil Stadium, the Penn State Nittany Lions were left out of the FBS college football playoff.
There was much discussion heading into the weekend as to whether or not Penn State would be worthy of a bid. It may seem absurd to think that a team with two losses is deserving of a spot. However, the Nittany Lions proved that they are more than worthy of competing with the best for the National Championship.
They were the only team to knock off Ohio State this season, who is the only representative from the Big Ten in the playoff.
Washington gets in
The Pac-12 has been widely considered the fourth-best of the “Power Five” conferences over the last handful of years. Nevertheless, this season it will have a team in the playoff and that team is the conference champion Washington.
The Huskies had an emphatic 41-10 victory at Levi’s Stadium on Friday night over No. 8 Colorado in the Pac-12 Championship, which was more than likely the deciding factor for the committee to place Washington in the playoff. It was a controversial move to say the least, seeing how the Huskies played in one of the weaker conferences and suffered one loss to No. 9 Southern California in week 11 by a score of 26-13. In most seasons that would be the nail in the coffin for a one loss Pac-12 team, but the committee opted otherwise this time around.
Alabama earns top seed
While the rest of the country bantered about different championship-weekend scenarios and how it would affect the playoff, all Nick Saban’s team had in mind was how they were going to top their opponent in the Southeastern Conference championship.
Alabama rolled to a 54-16 victory over No. 15 Florida in the SEC championship game at the Georgia Dome on Saturday. They did it in true Alabama fashion as well, with total team dominance without one player standing out over the rest and the defense taking the ball away three times.
The Crimson Tide had four combined rushing touchdowns from Derrick Gore (1), Joshua Jacobs (1) and Bo Scarbrough (2). In addition, they had one receiving touchdown from Gehrig Dieter and an interception return for a touchdown by defensive back Minkah Fitzpatrick. To nobody’s surprise, Alabama has already come out as the early favorite to take home the National Championship.
Jacob Mackey can be reached at [email protected].
