Clemson learns College Football Playoff fate

Left to right: the Nike uniforms that Alabama, Washington, Ohio State and Clemson will wear during the College Football Playoff. As part of the debt structure to pay off the reconstruction of Husky Stadium that reopened in 2013, the Huskies need to play seven home games every season if possible. In the next few minutes you will get my take on both of these matchups. This team, we battled through some things.

– North Carolina’s up-tempo offense matches Stanford’s plodding, traditional pro-style in the Sun Bowl on December 30. But this is 30 years later and a lot has changed.

July 14, 2014 – The CFP national championship trophy is unveiled. Hurts has 2592 yards along with 22 touchdowns and he has a QB rating of 68.5. But Washington shredded through its Pac-12 schedule with only one loss, to Southern California, and concluded with a resounding, 41-10 shellacking of then-No. His name is Jake Browning.

Fournette’s season has been marred with an ankle injury, limiting the superstar back to a career-low in carries (129), rushing yards (843) and rushing touchdowns (8). They’ve got a veteran, mobile quarterback. Yet, while the Tigers are loaded with the sort of talent (everything from fast and athletic defense to a playmaking dual-threat quarterback) that could legitimately challenge the Tide in the title game, we don’t see them making it that far. Clemson won both of those games with relative ease. On the other side of the ball here’s what needs to happen for Washington to win this game.

Watson replied: “All right, let’s get it”.

At Clemson, these battles have already been fought, and that experience is a nice line of demarcation between two programs that look an terrible lot alike. Washington also boasted wins over the CFP’s 10th-ranked team (Colorado), 18th-ranked squad (Stanford) and 19th-ranked team (Utah). Regardless, he probably had a pretty good idea that certain media commitments go along with the major bowls and not doing the teleconference was a glaring snub, intentional or not. In the Sugar Bowl, Ohio State University defeats University of Alabama 42-35 advancing them to the first College Football Final against the Oregon Ducks in Arlington, Texas. Instead, Clemson escaped with an overtime win. The 1978 Gator Bowl. But last year’s game was high-scoring and the rematch would attract Southerners who can easily drive here, as well as the vast numbers of alumni from each school who now live in the Sunshine State.

The storied programs met in the 2014 Orange Bowl, with Clemson winning.

One of the best running backs squares off against one of the best quarterbacks/athletes in college football.

For the first time, they truly played some playoff games before they got there.

And, oh by the way, the Heisman Trophy victor might be on the other side of the field.

If Ohio State loses to Oklahoma, the Buckeyes are out of the playoff and the Sooners are in. But Wisconsin was efficient on offense and strong on defense last week, so I can’t see the Badgers dropping on Tuesday night. Had Michigan taken care of business against the Hawkeyes, a loss to Ohio State would be its only blemish and it too would be in the Big Dance.

If they wanted a bone to pick, Penn State and even MI could focus on the weakness of UW’s nonconference schedule.

If you didn’t win your conference championship – and were beaten by the team that did – do you really deserve a chance to play for bigger spoils?

Despite being the No. 3 seed, Ohio State is a 3-point favorite over No. 2 Clemson, according to expert R.J. Bell.

After the ninth week of regular season play, the 12-member selection committee begins ranking the top 25 teams on a weekly basis. But we better not get used to that. I’m a little disappointed we didn’t make it. Next year we’ll be standing here talking about some other way it fell out.

“We kind of started to think, what’s your legacy going to be?” Ohio State, Clemson, Washington and Penn State round out the top five, followed by Michigan, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, USC and Florida State. Penn State finished No. 5, in front of MI at No. 6 and a sliver away from a shot at the title.

“I want to have a conversation with Gene and listen”, Meyer said.

Missing the Big Ten title game, did it hurt or help Ohio State’s playoff prep?