Penultimate Top 25 issued out, Alabama still retains top spot

I think Charles Huff, our special teams coordinator, Yaz, our special teams captain, long snapper, Blake Gillikin, Tyler, those guys have been awesome all year long.

For this exercise, forget about allegiances. Wisconsin will play Penn State on Saturday. Their coach was on the hot seat before the college football season started and now he’s a candidate for some illustrious job openings, including the OR coaching position. Bama has dominated so thoroughly this season that could rest their starters against Florida, lose the SEC Championship and still make the Playoff. Wiped out. Blown out.

The bottom line is that teams who do not win their conference should not be rewarded. The quick answer is they shouldn’t be able to touch the playoff with a 10-foot pole. “He’s been drinking a lot of milk all week and orange juice and vitamin C”, Franklin said before turning to a reference from “The Karate Kid”. Why do we have divisions, and more importantly, why do we have conference championship games if they really may not mean squat?

“What under-the-radar Bucky offensive skill player will make an impact in the B1G title game?” It feels as if no one can challenge Alabama.

He is looking forward to what could be a track meet in the secondary with the Nittany Lions. In the moment, we just want a championship that’s close in the fourth quarter. You can already hear Jim Harbaugh and his army preparing for war. Now, Ohio State is the interesting case.

“But again, I’m going to emphasize that our protocol is to select the four very best teams in college football”. Clemson is the better team but that doesn’t always equate to a win in these games. While I don’t see the playoffs in our future, I hope I am dead wrong and am cheering for chaos to ensue, because as they say, anything is possible.

GOLDMAN: Often, yeah, and they’re very strong number one seed.

Of course, the dilemma between both teams could be easily resolved by a Wisconsin victory in the Big Ten championship instead.

Ohio State seems like a lock to get in, right?

The Wolverines playoff hopes took a substantial hit with the double overtime loss at Ohio State in The Game on Saturday.

Coming on the heels of the first and only one-conference BCS championship game featuring LSU and Alabama out of the SEC, emphasizing conference champions was viewed as a way to make it less likely that one league would put multiple teams in the playoff. What the heck are the games for?!

In this scenario, Alabama and Ohio State are definitely in. I’m not sure which way the committee will go here. They will win one of the power 5 conferences and will likely be left out of college football’s prestigious Final Four. The biggest problem is that both teams in the de facto Big 12 championship game (Oklahoma and Oklahoma State) are behind both teams in the Big Ten championship game (Penn State and Wisconsin) and both teams in the Pac-12 championship game (Washington and Colorado).

Clemson has two things going for it.

Past year at this time, I wrote about the mess that is college football, focusing in part on conference championship games. The Tigers aren’t intimidated by the Tide or the big stage.

INSKEEP: Tom, can I ask one other thing? Quarterback Deshaun Watson is an elite player. Some schedules are tough, some only play at home, some have cake walks – it is too hard to measure that with any kind of consistency. “If Washington losses and everybody else (wins) … my opinion, Michigan goes to four”.

The outburst cost MI $10,000 in the form of a fine Monday from the Big Ten, pocket change when the coach makes $7 million a year.