Trace McSorley talks College Football Playoff

“I mean, when you think about our games, the competition we played, I thought as far as our whole season, I thought that said a lot for us”, Barrett said.

Committee chairman Kirby Holcutt said it was close, but Washington having just one loss against No. 9 Southern Cal was the determining factor.

“We didn’t do enough to make [junior quarterback Trace] McSorley uncomfortable, and they made plays”, head coach Paul Chryst said.

The fifth-year senior has been a part of some great teams at UW, and feels pretty good about the team’s performance early in the season, but believes there is certainly room for improvement.

“There was no debate about Alabama being ranked No. 1”. It was the largest comeback in the six-year history of the game. The pairings have set up a potential rematch.

Their early season loss to Pitt does not look as bad as it once did since the Panthere are now ranked (No. 25) and they beat No. 3 Clemson.

Oklahoma has a 53% chance to win.

Look around the country, and you’ll find a similar problem developing: Too often, a conference’s two best teams don’t meet to play for the title. Bama gets Washington in the Tide’s Georgia Dome home away from home on New Year’s Eve.

Where: University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, Arizona. Then it gets to travel to Tampa, Fla., for the title game, where Houndstooth Nation should again own the venue.

At the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook, Alabama opened as a 14-point favorite over Washington.

Southern California and Penn State followed two hard paths to reach a remarkable reunion eight years later in the Rose Bowl. There were no two-loss teams.

And Penn State did get blown out by MI and lost narrowly to Pittsburgh, though Clemson also fell to the confounding Panthers.

Wisconsin took a 31-28 lead on a field goal by Andrew Endicott, but Penn State answered in the fourth quarter on an 18-yard strike from McSorley to Barkley with 13:41 to go before forcing yet another Wisconsin punt.

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. The Big Ten will instead be represented in the playoff by Ohio State.

What was most impressive was how they won it.

A Rose Bowl trip, in many ways, is the ultimate gift for a team that deserves huge props for rallying from a 2-2 season start and a 28-7 deficit to Wisconsin on Saturday night. Penn State is riding a nine-game winning streak and played a tougher schedule.

As the contenders were announced, it became clear – this unexpectedly triumphant season was going to fall frustratingly short of college football’s biggest stage.

Conference championships matter. Head-to-head matters.

Quarterback J.T. Barrett told the media several weeks prior that he felt the Buckeyes were playoff-worthy and how could you leave the Buckeyes out.

Six times since 1990, USC has played a Big Ten foe in The Granddaddy of Them All. Wisconsin (9-3), the fourth Big Ten team in the top 10, slipped to No. 8. LSU’s Leonard Fournette and Florida State’s Dalvin Cook could and should be top 15 overall picks this April. But the Huskies buried Colorado in Friday night’s Pac-12 title game, and their nine conference wins (including the title game) came by an average of 27.8 points.

Clemson coach Dabo Swinney cautioned that more postseason would lessen the value of the regular season and that adding another round would require eliminating other games.

Virginia Tech was making its sixth appearance in the game but first since 2011.

The group has been so formidable that it has only allowed two touchdowns in the final five games – both of those scores coming in the SEC Championship Game against the Gators.

With Penn State trailing Wisconsin by two touchdowns at halftime, Wartman-White gave an emotional speech to the defense, one that was loud enough for the guys on offense to hear in their own meeting, according to McSorley.