When this college football season began, who envisioned the first 12-team College Football Playoff featuring byes to Boise State and Arizona State while waving bye-bye to 18-time national champion Alabama?
Oregon, Georgia, Mountain West titlist Boise State and Big 12 champ Arizona State secured the top four seeds in the official CFP bracket unveiled Sunday, which grants them first-round byes before launching their journeys toward the championship game on Jan. 20 in Atlanta.
Per CFP rules, the top five conference champions received automatic berths — and the top four claimed the first-round byes. That’s why Boise State, rated the ninth-best team by the committee, and Arizona State, ranked 12th by the committee, earned extra rest while higher-ranked at-large teams inherited an extra hurdle.
All seven at-large teams are found in the first-round matchups that will be played the weekend before Christmas on campus sites: No. 7 Notre Dame (11-1) hosts intrastate foe No. 10 Indiana (11-1) for the first time since 1991 in the CFP opener on Dec. 20. No. 6 Penn State (11-2) welcomes No. 11 SMU (11-2), No. 5 seed Texas (11-2) hosts No. 12 Clemson (10-3) and No. 8 Ohio State (10-2) hosts No. 9 Tennessee (10-2) in a tripleheader on Dec. 21.
That gives the new 18-team Big Ten four slots and the new 16-team SEC three slots in the CFP, though the SEC surely expected more before the season began. Alabama (9-3) and Miami (10-2) were listed as the first two teams out — per the selection committee chaired by Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel.
Alabama had one more loss than SMU, but the Crimson Tide’s strength of schedule ranked 16th nationally while the Mustangs were at No. 60. Alabama defeated three Top 25 teams in Georgia, Missouri and LSU.
“We looked at the number of wins Alabama had against ranked opponents,” Manuel said. “We looked at SMU’s schedule and they were undefeated in conference. Their losses were to ranked teams. But we also looked at Alabama’s (losses) to unranked teams. And it was quite a debate. We value strength of schedule. That’s why Alabama, as a three-loss team, is ranked ahead of other teams that have two losses. It is something that we talk about quite a bit.
“But in the balance of it, and the way SMU played in that (ACC championship) game, losing on a last-second field goal — great win by Clemson, great game — we just felt in this particular case, SMU still had the nod at (No.) 10 ahead of Alabama. But it’s no disrespect to Alabama’s strength of schedule. It’s merely looking at the entire body of work for both teams.”
Oregon (13-0), which ranked No. 3 in the Associated Press’ preseason Top 25 poll and ascended to the top spot on Oct. 20, clinched the top seed Saturday night with its 45-37 victory over Penn State in the Big Ten championship game in its first year in the league.
The Ducks are the nation’s lone FBS unbeaten and feeling much better than last December, when they dropped a 34-31 decision to Washington in the final Pac-12 championship game to cost them a trip to the CFP.
“I just know we took a loss in Las Vegas last year and it just didn’t sit right with the whole entire team,” said senior wide receiver Tez Johnson, who was named MVP of the Big Ten title game after catching 11 passes for 181 yards and one of Dillon Gabriel’s four touchdown tosses. “And I just know my teammates, my coaches, they pushed us to the limit every week.”
Oregon starts the quest for its first national championship versus the winner of the Ohio State-Tennessee game on New Year’s Day at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. The Ducks edged Ohio State 32-31 on Oct. 12 in Eugene, Ore.
No. 2 seed Georgia (11-2), which claimed two of the last three national titles when the CFP was a four-team invitational, gets the winner of Notre Dame-Indiana on Jan. 1 at the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans.
No. 3 Boise State (12-1) awaits the winner of Penn State-SMU on New Year’s Eve at the Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Ariz. No. 4 Arizona State (11-2) takes on the winner of Texas-Clemson on Jan. 1 at the Peach Bowl in Atlanta.
Quarterfinal victors advance to the Orange Bowl on Jan. 9 in Miami Beach Gardens, Fla.; and the Cotton Bowl on Jan. 10 in Arlington, Texas.
–Field Level Media