Committee picks Alabama, Washington, Ohio State and Clemson

Further still from the 1-11 finish in his first season in Kalamazoo in 2013.

While Alabama, Clemson and Washington all wrapped up conference titles on Saturday, Penn State came away with the Big Ten’s title with a win over Wisconsin.

Commence debate – the pairings are in, and Penn State and MI are out. But two games in September were a huge part of that decision by the playoff’s 12-person selection committee.

Those five former coaches in the room? “These are four teams that all could win the national championship, without a doubt”.

Alabama cruised to an SEC title, though the Crimson Tide were likely already in the CFP to begin with to start the week.

Clemson jumps up to the number two spot following their win over Virginia Tech in the ACC championship game.

Ohio State is the first non-conference champion to be selected by the CFP committee for the playoffs. Is that the best way to determine the four best teams, as the committee so often repeats is its mission?

But because we have short-term memories and we love to overreact to new developments, people are trying to glean what “message” the committee sent with these rankings.

College Football Playoff committee chairman Kirby Hocutt says “it was a challenging conversation” that led Washington to get the final spot in the semifinals over Penn State.

And Baylor’s non-conference schedule proved so crippling two years ago because all of the Power 5 leagues produced a one-loss champ. Dabo Swinney has taken the Tigers to a bowl game in each of his nine seasons, winning at least 10 games the past six. But they also suffered a loss against Pittsburgh, a quality nonconference foe. I don’t know. If we don’t win this game, maybe we throw a stink bomb out there, maybe we don’t get in the playoffs. Then they come out and dominate the 2nd half. “It’s on you now, the committee”. “Other than that, I like winning more than resting”.

The other New Year’s Six matchups go like this: MI against Florida State in the Orange Bowl, Penn State against USC in the Rose Bowl and Auburn against Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl. And had the committee left out a one-loss conference champion, Washington, it would have been just as controversial. That fits nicely with four playoff spots. Remember that Penn State beat Ohio State, though that didn’t keep the Buckeyes out of the Playoff in favor of the Lions. Alabama will be the favorite. Lester said early action on Clemson moved Ohio State down a tick in price, to -3.5 (-105). It is written in the ancient texts that if Alabama can face Auburn’s No. 5-ranked rushing offense and limit it to 66 yards, then Alabama will see that it is good.

The Nittany Lions were one of the most debated teams in terms of the CFP rankings.

Fans interested in purchasing tickets in the Ohio State sections through Ohio State University for the PlayStation Fiesta Bowl are encouraged to submit a request now at the following link on the Athletic Department website: http://go.osu.edu/PublicCFPTickets.

This is exactly what Western Michigan’s P.J. Fleck had in mind, though, when he kicked off championship weekend crowing about the luxuries of cotton, of all things.

There are some tasty matchups forthcoming, in other words. This game has been a premier bowl game for eight decades, and past year, it hosted a College Football Playoff semifinal.

“[The tickets] were extremely expensive, but I’d rather go broke watching the Nittany Lions play than anybody else”, Haldeman said.