We have arrived.
After myriad debate points, a handful of upsets, a dash of drama, and as wild a Championship Weekend as we’ve had in some time, the College Football Playoff is now upon us.
It wasn’t even all that controversial either — outside a few folks from the Yellowhammer State who view it as Alabama‘s birthright every season.
No, as soon as Utah started to lay it on previously No. 4-ranked USC on Friday night in the Pac-12 title game, the playoff may as well have been written in stone. The four best teams? They’re the two who passed every test with flying colors, and two opponents with the body of work to earn their way in.
“Georgia has got those five wins over ranked teams that really kind of led us down that road, the way they played in the championship game against LSU. Michigan played really well, as well, but there was nothing in our mind that was really much of flipping the two,” Selection Committee chair and N.C. State athletic director Boo Corrigan said. “When you look at TCU, 6-1 [against] teams over .500, 2-1 against ranked teams. Ohio State had the good wins over Penn State and Notre Dame, played Michigan close for three quarters of the game. But at the end of the day, we came back to TCU, and there was nothing that occurred during that game against Kansas State that we [believed] moved them out of the No. 3 spot.”
The only sliver of debate came down to whether the Crimson Tide deserved to be in over either the Buckeyes or, maybe more so, the Horned Frogs.
Yet aside from coming up inches short in the Big 12 championship game against Kansas State, TCU had beaten every team it played this season. The Frogs had a better strength of record, too. The Tide had just four wins over teams that finished better than .500 on the season, TCU had six and OSU five.
Top 25 wins? Sonny Dykes’ squad had two. Ryan Day notched a pair, too. Alabama sneaked in with just one, which wasn’t even in the top 20, much less the top 10. Oh, and they almost lost to Texas, Texas A&M and Ole Miss in the final minutes, too.
College Football Playoff: TCU is in, Alabama is not
RJ Young reacts to the final College Football Playoff rankings.
The case for Alabama — underscored by Nick Saban’s appearances across media platforms on Saturday while he was literally sitting at home — essentially came down to losing close games late and the assertion that Las Vegas oddsmakers would favor the Tide over everybody but Georgia.
It was not an argument the committee was buying, even if the greatest of all time was doing his best to sell it.
“We were in the room watching a game, I believe it was at halftime of one of the games on FOX where Coach Saban was … again, he’s advocating for his program, he’s advocating for the young men in his program just as other coaches are, and those are the relationships they care about, so I think it was perfectly understandable that that’s occurring,” Corrigan added. “But our job, the 13 of us, is to make sure we’re focused in on the games and football judgment and make sure that we get that right.”
That they did and, in the process, underscored that 2022 will be known for a lot of things, but it just might earn the label as the Year of the Big Ten.
The conference became the third to have two teams selected in the final four, joining the SEC (2017/2021) and, technically, the ACC in the COVID year of 2020 which saw Notre Dame folded into the league. Half of the prestigious New Year’s Six bowls involve a member from the Big Ten and the conference’s total of nine bowl-eligible teams is tied for second-most in the sport.
The second-seeded Wolverines became the fourth different program (and only one outside the South) to win back-to-back conference championships and make the playoff in consecutive seasons.
The Big Ten will also spend the final day of the year looking at two intriguing scenarios: a potential rematch of The Game in Los Angeles for the national championship should Michigan and Ohio State both win their semifinals — a meeting that could be their first outside the traditional regular-season finale since the series began in 1902.
If that doesn’t happen, then the league becomes the last line of defense against Georgia becoming the second program to repeat as champs in the past two decades.
Speaking of The Game, that was the highest-rated regular season college football contest since 2011 with a record 17 million viewers. A Big Ten team was involved in the highest-rated game of the week five different times during the season, too.
Then there are the players who are likely to dot the multitude of All-American lists in 2022. OSU’s Marvin Harrison Jr. is a favorite to win the Biletnikoff Award as the most outstanding receiver, Michigan’s Jake Moody is a Lou Groza Award finalist, two B1G punters (Michigan State’s Bryce Baringer/Rutgers’ Adam Korsak) landed on the Ray Guy Award shortlist. C.J. Stroud is up for both the Maxwell (best player) and Davey O’Brien Award (best QB). Illinois has finalists for the Thorpe Award (Devon Witherspoon) and Doak Walker (Chase Brown). The two best offensive linemen in the country, Michigan’s Olu Oluwatimi and Northwestern’s Peter Skoronski, have a good shot at taking home the Outland Trophy.
Can Ohio State beat Georgia?
RJ Young dives into the College Football Playoff semifinal matchups.
Then there’s the case of the Big Ten birthing the two storylines that were omnipresent since before fall camp even started, with the summer proclamation that USC and UCLA would be joining down the road and the August announcement of a record-breaking set of new media rights deals which will lead to greater exposure (and bigger budgets) for every school.
Even the coaching carousel saw the Big Ten occupy a prominent place atop everybody’s minds, with openings at Nebraska and Wisconsin dominating discussion on a weekly basis before leading to the big–name hires of Matt Rhule and Luke Fickell, respectively.
So yeah, it has been a good year in the great Midwest, which in many respects reasserted itself as one of the sport’s behemoths once again. Sunday was just a way for the Selection Committee to reconfirm that sentiment with two sides into the Playoff and a multitude of intriguing storylines beyond that.
Saturday Superlatives
Best Player: Michael Pratt, Tulane
Team of the Week: Utah
Coach of the Week: Kyle Whittingham, Utah
Goat of the Week: Alex Grinch, USC
Super 16
Here’s how I voted in the final FWAA/NFF Super 16 Poll of the year:
- Georgia
- Michigan
- Ohio State
- TCU
- Penn State
- Tennessee
- Alabama
- Kansas State
- Utah
- USC
- Clemson
- Washington
- Florida State
- Oregon State
- LSU
- Tulane
Just missed the cut: UCLA
Best of the rest: South Carolina, Texas, Oregon, Troy, Illinois, UTSA, Notre Dame, Fresno State
Pre-snap Reads
Fiesta Bowl semifinal: Michigan vs. TCU
The layoff between games probably hurts the Horned Frogs a bit more coming in, but this is also a group capable of getting right back into the game no matter what the deficit is. Sonny Dykes figures to have a few big plays up his sleeve for Quentin Johnston, but after what is likely a low-scoring first half, the Wolverines take control and out-physical TCU to win comfortably in the second half.
Peach Bowl semifinal: Georgia vs. Ohio State
If you asked Kirby Smart which team he didn’t want to face given all the options, chances are high he would have said the Buckeyes. They’ll come in well-motivated after their lone loss and certainly have the talent to win the entire thing. UGA shut down the only decent passing attack they faced this season, but Stroud & Co. offer a much different approach than Tennessee did back on Nov. 5. The Dawgs will try to play bully ball for four quarters, which will keep things close right up to the very end as they eek one out.
Orange Bowl: Tennessee vs. Clemson
There are Orange Bowls and there are orange bowls. No matter what the real crowd split will be, this will be a fascinating matchup for the quarterbacks alone. The Cade Klubnik era is fully underway with the Tigers, while this represents a huge opportunity for Joe Milton to show what he can do on the national stage after mixed results replacing Hendon Hooker. Still, this feels like just the game to get the hype train going off the rails in 2023 for Dabo Swinney’s crew.
Sugar Bowl: Alabama vs. Kansas State
The Crimson Tide being unmotivated to play in games like this, combined with opt-outs for the NFL draft, will make plenty of folks think this is the Wildcats’ game to lose. And they would be correct, even against a roster stocked with five-star talent and Nick Saban on the other side.
Cotton Bowl: USC vs. Tulane
The over/under on number of yards Tyjae Spears will run for in this game is set at 227. Even with him and Michael Pratt making some noise for a very fun offense, Lincoln Riley will still get his team motivated and prepared for this one (with or without Caleb Williams behind center).
Rose Bowl: Utah vs. Penn State
Both of these teams have played in some of the most epic games the Rose Bowl has ever seen. Pair them together, and we just might get another such contest beneath the picture-perfect San Gabriel Mountains at sunset. The Nittany Lions get the edge with the amount of young talent they have primed to use this as a national coming-out party, but the Utes will keep things close given how gutsy they are every single time out.
