Things to Cheer for on Championship Weekend

College football fans had been clamoring for a playoff system for ages. The Wolverines couldn’t have played Ohio State much closer. This opened the door for Washington to move into the fourth and final spot in the college football playoff.

And it all started with that blocked field-goal attempt against Ohio State on a chilly late October night in State College, Pennsylvania. Naturally, Gator fans want Florida to win and Nittany Lion fans want Penn State to win. Both teams rely heavily on their quarterbacks.

But no matter the playoff impact, when there are conference titles and bragging rights on the line, it’s never O.K.to lose. Let’s take a look a couple different scenario’s in which the Big Ten could claim at least one of those final two spots. If Penn State (10-2) wins it will have what seems like a particularly good argument to make the playoff ahead of the Buckeyes.

Ohio State, now ranked second in the current College Football Playoff rankings, is probably headed to the playoff after conference championship weekend, despite not winning the Big Ten Easts, let alone the Big Ten. Virginia Tech has done well with their backs against the wall this season, but Clemson is clearly the better team.

He then lists each team’s selling points: A Penn State win would give the Nittany Lions the head-to-head over OSU, a conference championship, a 2-1 record against the top ten, and a 3-2 record against the top 25.

“I myself think Alabama has done enough whether they have a conference champion behind their resume or not”. Their top-five defense has carried the team all year, and a big game on Saturday will keep them competitive.

FridayPac-12 Championship: No. 8 Colorado vs. For me, it could.

I think this is best for college football. The only thing that we can do is just control what we can control, which is trying to find a way to beat Penn State, and hopefully that puts us in a position to be one of those four teams (in the playoffs). Washington will look to throw in some style points while beating the #8 ranked Colorado to avoid any chance at this happening. The committee said MI was a really close fifth, but the Wolverines do not play while the Huskies can add a victory against Colorado and a Pac-12 title. The college football playoff was instituted out of protest after the 2012 BCS National Championship where Alabama backed into a National Championship despite not even winning their own division. Ohio State can not win the Big Ten, but the Buckeyes were second in the rankings last week and figure to be in the same spot Tuesday when the latest and second-to-last committee top 25 comes out. The Big Ten’s MI sits at No. 5. The argument for Colorado if it beats Washington soundly, with lots of other things needing to happen, is that it lost to MI without its top quarterback. Perhaps Saturday will bring the next star turn for a Big Ten back.

In year three of the playoff, we find ourselves with Ohio State ranked #2 in the nation going into a weekend where they can neither win nor lose. After that, the pool for the No. 4 spot includes Michigan, Colorado and perhaps – as a long shot – the Big 12 champ. As insane as it sounds, losses by both Clemson as Washington could see this happen. This is because Navy plays Army still, while Western Michigan is done. Okay. This game has the most intrigue as it is quite possible that the victor will not get into the playoff.

For all the same reasons that we don’t want to see the Big Ten victor get into the playoffs, we’re hoping the Pac-12 champ that was determined in Friday night’s Washington-Colorado late game is left on the outside looking in. That wasn’t Delany’s stance when the committee was formulated in 2012, when he argued vociferously the playoff should be comprised exclusively of conference champions.