Four for all the marbles
Mix of old, new set to battle for national championship
Cincinnati is the first outsider to make the College Football Playoff. Alabama is the standard bearer.
The two will meet in a semifinal game deep in the heart of Texas on New Year’s Eve in the Cotton Bowl.
American Athletic Conference champion Cincinnati (13-0), the only remaining undefeated team, was fourth in the CFP rankings released Sunday to become the first non-Power Five confernce team to make the final four. Top-seeded Alabama (12-1) is making its seventh appearance in the eight seasons of the four-team format and will play its 12th playoff game.
“I can’t say that I’ve studied much of anything that they’ve done, but obviously just watching from afar this year at times, you know they’re a great football team,” Cincinnati coach Luke Fickell said of the Crimson Tide on ESPN. “They’ve got great talent across the board.”
The Bearcats finished fourth even with only two victories this season over CFP top 25 teams, though one of those was 24-13 on Oct. 2 at Notre Dame. That was the only loss this season for the Fighting Irish, who were fifth in the CFP, the first team left out of the playoff. Cincinnati won the AAC title game Saturday 35-20 over No. 20 Houston, which had an 11-game winning streak.
“We certainly think Cincinnati belongs in the playoffs and they’re a really good team, based on their resume, who they beat, whether it’s Notre Dame, Indiana,” Alabama coach Nick Saban told ESPN. “We have to have the proper respect.”
Alabama has won six national titles under Saban, three of those coming in the short CFP era. This is the fifth time the Crimson Tide is the No. 1 seed.
The Tide won the SEC championship game 41-24 over previously unbeaten Georgia, which is the No. 3 seed and will play Big Ten champion Michigan in the Orange Bowl, the other playoff semifinal.
This will be the third CFP semifinal game Alabama will play inside AT&T Stadium, the home of the NFL’s Cowboys, after winning the first two during national championship seasons.
It’s Alabama’s ninth Cotton Bowl. Cincinnati is playing in the Cotton Bowl for the first time, but will playing in its second New Year’s Six game. Last New Year’s Day, the Bearcats lost 24-21 in the Peach Bowl when Georgia kicked a 53-yard field goal with three seconds left in the game.
Michigan vs. Georgia
The CFP semifinal in the Orange Bowl will match surging Michigan against a Georgia team that went unbeaten through the regular season before a humbling loss to the defending national champion. Defense has been the calling card for both. Michigan (12-1) and Georgia (12-1) are two of the more storied programs in college football, but they have faced each other only twice before. They split the two meetings, one in 1957 and the other in 1965.
The Wolverines got on a roll after their only loss, 37-33 at Michigan State on Oct. 30. They closed with a 42-27 win over then-No. 2 Ohio State and put a 42-3 beatdown on Iowa in the Big Ten championship game on Saturday night.
“Just a bunch of guys that wanted to give it their very best and then feel good about what they accomplished,” Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh told ESPN. “They accomplished a lot through a lot of work.”
Georgia, with the most dominant defense in the country through its first 12 games, came into the season with high expectations. The Bulldogs were No. 5 in the preseason and No. 2 to Alabama in the first five polls of the regular season. They took over the top spot after Alabama lost at Texas A&M on Oct. 9 and were there until they fell to No. 3 in the AP poll Sunday.
The Bulldogs went into SEC championship game as a touchdown favorite against Alabama. But their offense went flat and committed two turnovers, one an interception returned for a touchdown, and they converted only 3 of 12 third downs.
Alabama’s Bryce Young threw for 421 yards and three touchdowns.
“You have to be brutally honest with yourself at a time like this,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. “You’ve got to be able to say, ‘Who are we? What are we doing? Well, maybe we’re not as good as we thought in some areas, and where can we improve?’ Sometimes you’ll see that through a loss.”
The Wolverines feature two of the best defensive ends in the country in Aidan Hutchinson and David Ojabo, who have combined for 25 sacks, and Georgia has the premier defensive tackle in Outland Trophy finalist Jordan Davis.