Clemson vs. Sooners, Tide vs

Opening College Football Playoff lines have been released, and early odds favor Alabama and Oklahoma to reach the championship.

A year after debate and controversy surrounded the final week of the season, the 2015 college football season gift wrapped the easiest playoff selection imaginable.

Long said that bumping Michigan State past Oklahoma had nothing to do with avoiding the possibility of having the Sooners play close to home in in the Dallas area. In the other game, Oklahoma has actually opened as the favorite, getting odds of -2.5 points against Clemson. The biggest could come from the Big Ten championship game, where Michigan State handed Iowa its first loss of the year. Clemson is looking for its first national championship since 1981.

Alabama is the only team that also played in the first four-team playoff last season, but lost 42-35 to eventual national champion Ohio State from the Big Ten in the Sugar Bowl. But if I had a voice in that room, I’d have hammered the point that Michigan State deserved to be No. 2.

The winners of those games will face each other on January 11 in the National Championship game in Glendale, Arizona. Both had four wins over top-25 teams.

This will be the second year of this game, and if the inaugural edition was any indication, this could end up being one of the more fun bowl games each and every December. That game took place 367 days before this year’s game will be played. Alabama is expected to roll over Michigan State and meet the Sooners in the title game.

L.J. Scott’s late lunge did more than put the ball across the goal line – it all but certainly put No. 5 Michigan State into the College Football Playoff.

Playoff pairings will be announced at 12:30 p.m.

It’s easy to speculate that the playoff committee had ulterior motives to rank the Spartans at No. 3 and the Sooners at No. 4.

Peach Bowl: Houston (12-1) vs. Florida State (10-2), December 31. The Clemson offense, which ranks 12th in the nation and is averaging 510.6 yards-per-game, is led by ACC Player of the Year Deshaun Watson.

Michigan State captured the Big 10 Championship on Saturday, scoring a touchdown in the final minute to beat undefeated Iowa.

The Oklahoma Football team holds up their 2015 Big 12 Trophy during halftime of an NCAA college basketball game against Wisconsin in Norman, Okla., Sunday, Nov. 29, 2015.

Florida (10-3) is headed to Orlando to play MI (9-3) in the Buffalo Wild Wings Citrus Bowl.