It’s Alabama vs. Washington, Clemson vs

Ohio State was rewarded because it is the only team with victories over three teams now ranked in the top 10, and the Buckeyes’ resume includes a convincing non-conference road win over eventual Big 12 champion Oklahoma.

Rounding out the top five are Ohio State, Clemson, Washington and Penn State.

OSU had the most top 10 wins of any of the four semifinalists, with three.

Their job was to pick the four best teams in college football.

Ohio State didn’t win the Big Ten this year. Penn State had beaten the Buckeyes and they won arguably the toughest division in football plus the Big Ten Championship.

Penn State and MI were the casualties this season, just like there were casualties in the first two seasons of the Playoff’s existence.

It was after Alabama that things became dicey.

There are 5 “power” conferences but only 4 playoff slots.

The Orange Bowl has an agreement with the Big Ten, SEC and Notre Dame that requires it to take the highest-ranked non-playoff team from those two conferences. They did not even play in their conference championship. If it is about the four best teams and not conference championships, then why play the games? Ohio State is a 3-point favorite over Clemson.

Where the two rankings differ is at No. 2 and No. 3.

Penn State finished the season on a nine-game winning streak to make a strong closing statement. There was no punishment for that loss.

In going with Ohio State as the one of the playoff teams, the committee by-passed two factors it said was important when the system began in 2014, conference championships and head-to-head results.

Here are our top-5 individual performances from last weekend’s games. Speaking of Pitt, would you take Clemson – who lost to the Panthers – over MI had the Wolverines beat Iowa?

They rotate every year.

Friday night, Washington easily disposed of Washington State, 41-10, to win the Pac-12 championship. They had an embarrassing loss to MI, but the Wolverines lost to Iowa.

“I want to have a conversation with Gene and listen”, Meyer said. And the Trojans struggled early with three losses. The Seminoles lost to Louisville by 43 points and dropped a heartbreaker to Clemson, 37-34.

“We come back to our charge to select the four very best teams in college football”, Hocutt said. But coach Chris Petersen, in his third season after a fruitful tenure with Boise State, guided the Huskies to an 8-1 regular-season record in the deep Pacific-12 Conference, with their only loss coming last month against Southern California. However, I feel they should not even be considered a top 4 team.

Strength of schedule. You can measure schedule strength in a bunch of ways. Because all the teams you play from here on out are really, really good.

Regardless, what’s done is done.

Michigan, which also had hopes of crashing the playoff party, will head to Miami and the Orange Bowl on December 30 where Florida State will be awaiting.

Easiest way is just to make it eight teams and have it set up like I described.

The lesson for next year is to model Alabama and go undefeated.