Road to Miami begins as final four seek national title

Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State and Notre Dame are the four teams competing in the College Football Playoff. The title game is at Hard Rock Stadium.

The playoff field is set. The Alabama Crimson Tide, Clemson Tigers, Ohio State Buckeyes and Notre Dame Fighting Irish are the quartet advancing to this year’s College Football Playoff semifinals, competing for two spots in the 2021 CFP national championship game that will be held at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium on Jan. 11.

Alabama and Clemson have now been in six of the seven iterations of the College Football Playoffs. Ohio State is making its fourth appearance and Notre Dame its second.

All four teams play their semifinal contests Jan. 1.

No. 1 seed Alabama and

No. 4 Notre Dame will play in the afternoon game, with a 4 p.m. kickoff from AT&T Stadium in Dallas. It’s a rematch of the 2013 BCS National Championship Game, a contest Alabama won 42-14 in Miami when Hard Rock Stadium was called Sun Life Stadium.

The game was originally supposed to be played at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, but the game was relocated “based on the growing number of COVID-19 cases in Southern California along with the inability to host player and coach guests at any game in California,” according to a press release by the Pasadena Tournament of Roses.

“Add this to the list of ways 2020 has demanded flexibility and last-minute accommodation from everyone in college football,” CFP executive director Bill Hancock said in a statement Saturday night.

“Given all the complexities and difficulties involved, this is the best outcome for everyone concerned.”

No. 2 seed Clemson and No. 3 seed Ohio State will play in the Sugar Bowl, with kickoff set for 8 p.m.

It’s the second consecutive year and third time overall Clemson and Ohio State have faced off in a CFP semifinal. Clemson won both matchups, 31-0 in the Fiesta Bowl in the 2016-17 season and 29-23 last year also in the Fiesta Bowl.

Heading into Sunday’s reveal, the main question surrounded which team would get the fourth and final spot in the playoffs, with Notre Dame and Texas A&M as the two favorites to vie for the No. 4 seed.

The 13-person CFP selection committee went with the Fighting Irish, the team they had ranked No. 2 in all four of its previous rankings before Notre Dame’s crushing 34-10 loss to Clemson in the

ACC Championship Game.

Even with the threescore defeat, Notre Dame’s

resume still included an overtime victory against Clemson earlier in the season and a 14-point road win over North Carolina, which the committee ranked No. 15 last week.

The Fighting Irish averaged 37.7 points during its 10-game regular-season slate and held six of its opponents to 17 points or fewer.

Notre Dame is the first team to lose in its conference championship game and still be named one of the four playoff semifinalists the next day.

Texas A&M, meanwhile, went 8-1, with its lone loss a 52-24 defeat to Alabama on Oct. 3. After that, the Aggies won their final seven games, highlighted by a last-second 41-38 win over the Florida Gators in College Station on Oct. 10.

Texas A&M won each of its final six games by at least two scores, albeit against a half-dozen unranked teams.

“Very similar resumes,” CFP selection committee chairman Gary Barta said, “but in the end, the committee felt like Notre

Dame had earned its way there based on the complete analysis of the resume and that probably came down to having an additional win against a ranked team.”

The top three spots, meanwhile, seemed all but set after Saturday’s conference championship games.

Alabama (11-0), eyeing its first national title since 2017, held onto its top spot in the rankings after beating the Florida Gators 52-46 in the SEC Championship Game on Saturday in Atlanta. The Crimson Tide dominated its competition on a weekly basis, outscoring opponents 547-214.

Outside of Saturday, Alabama won every game by at least 15 points and had seven victories by at least 28 points.

Alabama has three players on offense who are legitimate Heisman Trophy contenders: quarterback Mac Jones (3,739 passing yards, 32 touchdowns, four interceptions), running back Najee Harris (1,262 rushing yards, 24 rushing touchdowns, 5.9 yards per

rush) and wide receiver DeVonta Smith (98 catches, 1,511 yards, 17 touchdowns).

Clemson (10-1) avenged its lone loss of the season Saturday by defeating Notre Dame 34-10 in the ACC Championship Game. Quarterback Trevor Lawrence, the heavy favorite to be the top pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, missed the first matchup between the Tigers and Fighting Irish (a 47-40 Notre Dame overtime win) after testing positive for COVID-19.

In the conference title game, Lawrence completed 25 of 36 passes for 322 yards and two touchdowns and ran for another score. The Tigers defense held Notre Dame to 263 yards, more than 200 yards below the team’s season average and less than half of the 518 yards it put up in the first matchup.

All but one of Clemson’s wins was by at least 20 points.

Ohio State (6-0) played the fewest games of the four semifinalists due to a combination of the Big Ten’s late start to the season (the league’s first games were on Oct. 23 and 24) and Ohio State having three of its eight regularseason games canceled due to COVID-19 complications. That didn’t stop the selection committee from putting the Big Ten Champions in the playoffs. The Buckeyes outscored their half-dozen opponents 255126 and have a pair of wins over ranked opponents (42-35 over Indiana on

Nov. 21 and 22-10 over Northwestern on Saturday in the conference championship).

THE REST OF THE NEW YEAR’S SIX BOWLS

Cotton Bowl (Dec. 30,

●

8 p.m.): No. 6 Oklahoma Sooners vs. No. 7 Florida Gators

Peach Bowl (Jan. 1,

●

noon): No. 8 Cincinnati Bearcats vs. No. 9 Georgia Bulldogs

Fiesta Bowl (Jan. 2, 4

●

p.m.): No. 25 Oregon Ducks vs. No. 10 Iowa State Cyclones

Orange Bowl (Jan. 2, 8

●

p.m.): No. 5 Texas A&M Aggies vs. No. 13 North Carolina Tar Heels