LIONS, TIGERS &
PSU, Clemson make cases to CFB with wins BRACKET GURU’S PREDICTION
PENN STATE just made the College Football Playoff selection committee’s job a lot harder.
How much value does a conference championship have? How about a head-tohead victory?
The Nittany Lions now have both of those over Ohio State heading into selection Sunday.
“We just won the toughest conference in college football,” Penn State coach James Franklin said Saturday after the Nittany Lions beat Wisconsin for the Big Ten title. “It’s on you now, committee.”
Championship weekend ended with a couple wild games, but mostly the field of four fell into place. Alabama, Washington and Clemson all took care of their business — though the Tigers had to work much harder than the other two — and have to be feeling good about hearing their names called when the semifinals are set.
Washington might not feel as comfortable as the other two. Ohio State was home, hoping it was safely in the field after being No. 2 in the committee’s rankings last week. But how safe are they now from a surging Penn State?
Consider the turnaround complete. Five years after the Jerry Sandusky scandal tainted the program and the late Joe Paterno’s legacy, and the ensuing NCAA sanctions seemed to put the Nittany Lions on the fast track to nowhere, they are Big Ten champs and look like a real national championship contender.
The Nittany Lions (11-2) ran their winning streak to nine games Saturday night by wiping out a 21-point deficit to beat Wisconsin 38-31 in the Big Ten title game. The Nittany Lions, seventh in the last rankings, are the hottest team in the country that doesn’t call Tuscaloosa, Alabama, home.
They beat Ohio State in October. They won the division they share with the Buckeyes and now they are Big Ten champions for the first time since 2008. Ohio State has three victories against top-10 teams, including road wins against Wisconsin and Oklahoma.
Committee chairman Kirby Hocutt has said the margin between the Nittany Lions and Buckeyes was not all that close. What about now? Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany was on ESPN earlier Saturday calling Ohio State a lock, basically lobbying for a second team from his conference.
The committee has not been thrilled with Washington’s strength of schedule, but would it really dump the Huskies (12-1) for another Big Ten team after they pounded Colorado in the Pac-12 title game Friday night? And if it does, which one? Michigan was fifth last week by a “razor thin” margin, Hocutt said, behind the Huskies.
But the Wolverines were home, too. Only Penn State was able to make a final statement, and what a statement it was.
Clemson (12-1) won the Atlantic Coast Conference championship by beating Virginia Tech 42-35, making it a lot more exciting than Tigers fans probably hoped. Deshaun Watson added to his Heisman Trophy resume and Clemson needed every one of the five touchdowns he accounted to hold off the Hokies.
Alabama (13-0) completed its rampage through the regular season earlier in the day, crushing Florida 54-16 just for the fun of it.
The Big 12 is about to be 1 for 3 in making the College Football Playoff with conference champion Oklahoma on the outside looking in this year. The last time the smallest Power Five conference was left out of the semifinal was 2014.
The result was an 18-month existential crisis for the Big 12 that led to the return of its conference championship game in 2017 and a rather public exploration of expansion possibilities. The Big 12 has issues. Its teams are too reliant on recruiting in the state of Texas and programs such as Baylor and TCU are not built to be national contenders on a regular basis.
None of that will change in the short term. What the Big 12 needs most of all is a healthy and humming Texas program to give the conference another consistent top10 team to go along with Oklahoma. The Big 12 needs Tom Herman to be as good as advertised. As for Oklahoma, which ran the table in the Big 12 to win its 10th title under coach Bob Stoops, it is off to the Sugar Bowl.