Playoff pairings: Clemson-Oklahoma and Alabama-Michigan St.

Then again, college football can always use a break from the annual pecking-order controversy. They have had an outstanding year, and we know there will be a very, very small margin of error – for both teams.

This year it is not just a bowl game. The Buckeyes jumped over the Big 12’s TCU and Baylor to make the inaugural College Football Playoff field as the No. 4 seed. Over its final seven games of the regular season, OU outscored its opponents – including the three top contenders in the Big 12 – by an average score of 52-19 and produced no fewer than 500 total yards in any game.

Even that, though, worked itself out before the final Sunday morning prayer breakfast.

This indeed is a very different year for Oklahoma football than the 2014 season, and we’re all hoping it will end in a much different way. That includes Saturday’s 29-15 victory over Florida in the conference title game, though the Tide failed to cash as a hefty 16.5-point fave.

This year was even easier.

The selection committee revealed the pairings for second playoff Sunday, a day after the top teams eliminated any controversy about who should be in the final four.

The other is making sure it’s not forgotten.

Long said bumping Michigan State past Oklahoma had nothing to do with avoiding the possibility of having the Sooners play close to home in the Dallas area. There was no chaos so there were no great debates.

“We know what kind of physical, tough teams they have at Michigan State, and it will be a real challenge for our team”, Saban said Sunday.

“Not this week”, Long told ESPN. Clemson has been competitive of late but has claimed only one national title, for the 1981 season – which was also the last time, before this season, that it was ranked No. 1 in The Associated Press poll.

Alabama has also turned things around after a motivating loss to Mississippi.

Because Michigan State has an excellent quarterback in Connor Cook and a beastly offensive line, the Spartans can still run an offense that looks like the one Saban’s teams ran while winning three national titles between 2009 and ’12. “We’ve got to do a better job, players and coaches together, to give ourselves a chance”. “We’ve played great teams here”. Oklahoma beat teams ranked No. 11 (TCU), No. 16 (Oklahoma State), No. 17 (Baylor) and No. 23 (Tennessee).

The Pac-12 was left out of the system despite being, unquestionably, one of the nation’s top four conferences.

The field can’t be level if conferences don’t play by the same set of rules. The conference’s lack of a championship game may actually have ended up an advantage. It was the second-largest Cotton Bowl comeback – Notre Dame trailed by 22 points with 7:37 left before beating Houston 35-34 in 1979.

“This group of seniors has played in four straight MAC championship [games], with two victories, and now in four straight bowl games”, said Huskies coach Rod Carey. “DeShone was able to lead our football team to some big wins”. If the idle Sooners had stayed No. 3, they would have played three hours from campus against a higher seed. Coker would end his afternoon going 18-of-26 for 204 yards (2 touchdowns).

The winners will meet for the national championship on January 11 in Glendale, Ariz. That’s right, I’m tabbing Oklahoma as this year’s title victor. Some years, though, it still doesn’t work out in your favor. This year, with Oklahoma, it probably helped.

Long wasn’t about to get dragged into that discussion. “So they didn’t have that risk reward”. No doubt the playoff will eventually expand to an elite eight – or more. But Alabama is fast, too, and more disciplined, and won’t mess it up two years in a row.

“We’ve got exactly the opportunity that we’ve worked so hard for since last February, and we’re going to see if we measure up”, Dantonio said.

It is not necessary yet.

Notre Dame-Ohio State is a big deal for obvious reasons – iconic brands, massive followings and all that good stuff.

It will take calamity, not quiet, to force dramatic change.

The teams were selected by a 12-member committee composed of sitting athletic directors from most of the so-called Power 5 conferences, the former coaches Tom Osborne of Nebraska and Bobby Johnson of Vanderbilt, and other luminaries, such as former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, now a Stanford professor.