College Football Playoff teams announced

At that time, Bowlsby said, “Given our round-robin, nine-game scheduling model, it is expected the Big 12 champion will be uniquely positioned for College Football Playoff consideration”.

“If you’re looking at most deserving, Penn State has a better resume”.

Petersen has never coached against Saban, and that will change on December 31 when their teams meet at the Peach Bowl in one of this year’s College Football Playoff semifinals. So why start now?

While Penn State didn’t get a spot in the College Football Playoff after rallying to beat Wisconsin in the conference title game on Saturday, there seems to be nothing but joy and celebration coming from the Nittany Lions as they prepare to face Southern Cal in the Rose Bowl on January 1.

Winner: Washington coach Chris Petersen. Because you’re a competitor, and you want to compete for a national championship.

Alabama stayed at No. 1 in the latest rankings and will face Washington in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl in Atlanta, Georgia on Saturday, Dec. 31 on ESPN.

The Tigers (12-1) were No. 3 in the next-to-last College Football Playoff rankings and leapfrogged the Buckeyes after beating No. 18 Virginia Tech 42-35 in the ACC championship game. Penn State defeated Wisconsin, 38-31, Saturday night to win the Big Ten championship.

Let’s have Alabama against USC.

Loser: Big 12. No semifinalist for the second time in three years because its champion, Oklahoma, was only No. 7 in the final rankings.

Southern California and Penn State followed two hard paths to reach a remarkable reunion eight years later in the Rose Bowl. Unbeaten Western Michigan is likely to be the highest ranked Group of Five champion and get one spot.

“We’ve had a great year-I’m really proud of our guys. That’s one other game against a good team and now they will have that with the championship game”. These people aren’t academics. But they must take their cues from academics, who must in turn give at least a cursory, public nod to, well, academics.

“As we looked to our coaches to share their perspective on what they saw on the field”, Hocutt said, “it was determined that Washington was the more talented team”.

YOUNG QBs: The game matches two gifted young quarterbacks who became stars this season.

But would pushing it one week later matter?

Loser: Pac-12. Only produced six bowl-eligible teams, the lowest total in the conference’s 12-school era, and was unable to fill two contractual obligations (Las Vegas and Cactus bowls).

“In TCU’s case, they fell out of the playoff”. Second, it’s already a two-semester sport.

Penn State dropped two of their first four, losing to Pitt, who finished 23rd in the final poll, and MI, who clobbered a banged up Nittany Lion team 49-10.

That said, Washington is also among college football’s top four teams for a reason.

None of this is to bash the non-Big Ten teams that made the Playoff. The national championship game will be January 9 in Tampa.

This is not a universally held worldview. For years I pushed for a 16-team matrix, the same one used by FBS and the lower divisions.

Considering the money and time invested in college football, all the necks deserve to be on the line every week.

And that’s fine. The regular season should matter. The Big Ten will instead be represented in the playoff by Ohio State. The Nittany Lions went undefeated in 1994.

The Buckeyes’ only loss came at No. 5 Penn State, 24-21, in a second consecutive nationally-televised night game on the road after playing at Wisconsin the previous week. The Buckeyes punched their ticket for the playoff with last week’s 30-27 win over rival MI, and their non-conference win over Big 12 champion Oklahoma bolstered OSU’s strength-of-schedule argument over Penn State’s.