No surprises as College Football Playoff field set

If you love college football, you can’t look at the semifinal matchups and not get excited about New Year’s Eve. If the idle Sooners had stayed No. 3, they would have played three hours from campus against a higher seed.

While all four teams in this year’s College Football Playoff were their respective conference’s outright champion, suppose that the Playoff bracket was hypothetically expanded to eight teams. No. 1 Clemson’s meeting with No. 4 Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl and No. 2 Alabama’s clash with No. 3 Michigan State in the Cotton Bowl feature no shortage of storylines.

This year’s jump – Michigan State over Oklahoma – didn’t keep the Big 12 out of the playoff.

The committee’s protocol states it will “place the top two seeds at the most advantageous sites regarding home-crowd advantage or disadvantage and general familiarity with the host city and its stadium”.

While Williams will not be available for the College Football Playoffs, Dabo Swinney told the media Sunday he will be a Tiger next year.

He tied the SEC record for touchdowns in a season with 23 and eclipsed Herschel Walker’s 34-year-old conference mark for yards rushing in a season with 1,986, with at least one more game left.

Dexter Lawrence, the nation’s No. 3 prospect, was on an official visit to Alabama this weekend, AL.com’s Drew Champlin wrote. He will test Oklahoma’s defense through the air as well as on the ground; Watson rushed for more than 100 yards in four of the past five games. Alexander, a prospective pro who is considered Clemson’s “lockdown corner”, limited Shepard to one catch for 13 yards in last year’s bowl game.

Coach Bob Stoops says this team might be the best he’s had in 17 seasons at Oklahoma in terms of practice habits and collective desire to improve. Plus, both defenses have logged 38 sacks so far this season.

The reason I believe the Sooners match up better with Clemson is because the Tigers are not as good as Alabama in stopping the run, and Oklahoma must be able to establish its running game in order to slow down the pass rush and give Baker Mayfield time to spot open receivers. That is what makes the Oklahoma offense so unsafe.

Muschamp, 44, was 28-21 at Florida (2011-14). Oklahoma is completely different with Mayfield, with a new offense that began to jell around midseason, and with a defense that grew fangs at about the same time.

Clemson football quarterback Deshaun Watson, left, and offensive guard Eric Mac Lain celebrate durin … Dual-threat quarterbacks like Watson have always given Oklahoma trouble, and they will definitely have to contend with that when they play the Tigers. OU also did not have Joe Mixon to complement Samaje Perine in the backfield. Appropriately, that tour will continue with the fifth team, Clemson.

I’m just amazed and impressed with the Sooners’ turnaround this season because a year ago we were all wondering (aloud, no less) if Stoops had lost his magic and it was time to move on. Then it has the classic case of a coach against a former employer when Nick Saban’s No. 2 Alabama plays the Cotton Bowl against No. 3 Michigan State.

So why am I making everything Alabama-centric, Alabama-focused and Alabama-arranged? Penn State is 7-5 after losing its last three regular-season games. “I do think it was a good experience for us because it was a combination of players used to going to bowl games…but we’d never really went to a bowl game that was a playoff game, and I’m not sure we managed that exactly the way we should have”, UA coach Nick Saban said.

This year it is not just a bowl game. Sounds like the Oklahoma story this season, doesn’t it? The Sooners have won their games since the Texas loss by an average 32 points.

Michigan State rebounded with a big win over defending national champion Ohio State on a last second field goal in Columbus.

After a college football season filled with stunning late-game moments and high-profile injuries that swung the fortunes of many teams, the College Football Playoff Selection Committee got as easy a top-four decision as it will ever have.

Still, to most in Alabama, “MSU” stands for the maroon-clad SEC team located in a cow town some 90 minutes west of Tuscaloosa down U.S. 82.