INSIDE: A GUIDE TO THE COLLEGE BOWLS
Clemson and Alabama to meet in the College Football Playoff for a third straight year; Oklahoma plays Georgia for the first time
If you feel that the bowl season is the most wonderful time of the year, you’ll enjoy this page.
It is probably going to be a while for fans who thought Big Ten champion Ohio State, or maybe some other team, should have been in the College Football Playoff to get past the selection of Alabama. The Crimson Tide had been more consistent this season and lost just once. The Buckeyes lost twice, including an embarrassing 31-point loss to unranked Iowa, but have the more impressive set of victories. Ohio State won the Big Ten while Alabama did not even win its SEC division.
In the end, Alabama got in for being Alabama, the surest bet in college football and the only team to appear in every playoff since the first in 2014. Meanwhile, this marks the first season that the Big Ten has been left out of the playoffs and the second time in four seasons that the Pac-12 was shut out.
Regardless of what you think, the games set up for this year’s playoffs look to be pretty good. Recent history suggests Alabama and Clemson in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1 will be entertaining. Rarely in his college career has Baker Mayfield failed to deliver for Oklahoma, and Georgia brings one of the best defenses the Heisman front-runner has ever faced in a brilliant career to the Rose Bowl.
Simply having the games back on New Year's Day is probably reason for celebration.