PARTY CRASHERS
Cincinnati makes history as first team outside Power Five in playoffs
CThe Bearcats will play Alabama in the Cotton Bowl and Michigan will face Georgia in the Orange Bowl on New Year’s Eve after being selected to the College Football Playoff as a historic field of four was set Sunday. The winners will play for the national championship on Jan. 10 in Indianapolis.
Fourth-seeded Cincinnati is the first team to reach the CFP from a non-Power Five conference. The Bearcats (13-0) won the American Athletic Conference and head into the postseason as the only unbeaten team in the country.
Previously, no team from a so-called Group of Five conference had ever even come close to making the playoff in the final CFP rankings. Not two UCF teams that went unbeaten in the 2017 and ‘18 regular seasons nor Cincinnati last year, when undefeated was only good enough for a Peach Bowl bid against Georgia.
“We don’t want to carry the flag for non-big schools, so to speak. We just want to be us,”
Cincinnati coach Luke Fickell said.
The Bearcats made history with little debate. Playoff selection committee chairman Gary Barta said there was strong consensus for Cincinnati at No. 4 ahead of No. 5 Notre Dame, which had only one loss — at home against the Bearcats in early October. Ohio State, which has two losses including to Big Ten rival Michigan in its regular season finale, finished sixth.
Others next up on the list were Big 12 champion Baylor at No. 7, the SEC’s Mississippi at No. 8, Big 12 runner-up Oklahoma State, No. 9, and the Big Ten’s Michigan State at No. 10. All have two losses.
The Bearcats might not have been so comfortably in the field had things gone differently at the Big 12 championship game Saturday. Oklahoma State, which was No. 5 in the CFP rankings going into the game, came up inches short of scoring a go-ahead touchdown in the final minute against Baylor. The Bears made the goal-line stand to win the Big 12 and, after Cincinnati took care of Houston in the AAC title game, the Bearcats were in the clear.
With Alabama and Georgia both in the playoffs, it is the third time two teams from the same conference are in the CFP and second time it has happened with the SEC. In the 2017 playoff, Alabama beat Georgia in overtime to win the national title.
As conference leaders consider expanding the playoff bracket from four to 12 teams as soon as 2024, only two Power Five leagues will be represented this season: the SEC and Big Ten. The Atlantic Coast Conference missed out for the first time. The Big 12 was shutout for the second straight season and the Pac-12 for the sixth time will not have a team in the playoff.
Cincinnati’s reward for making history is a matchup with the defending national champions in the Cotton Bowl at the home of the Dallas Cowboys.
“We certainly think Cincinnati belongs in the playoff,” Alabama coach Nick Saban said.
The Crimson Tide is in the playoff for the seventh time in the postseason format’s eightyear history after handing Georgia its first loss of the season in the Southeastern Conference title game Saturday.
Alabama (12-1) seemed to be a loss away from being eliminated from playoff contention heading into its game with Georgia, after
barely beating in-state rival Auburn the week before after four overtime periods. Instead, Bryce Young and the Tide lit up the Bulldogs’ vaunted defense to earn the top seed.
Saban’s Alabama dynasty has won three playoff championships to go along with three BCS titles since 2009.
Georgia (12-1) managed to stay in the field as the third seed, becoming the second team to lose its conference title game and still make the playoff. Notre Dame did the same last season, when it lost a rematch with Clemson in its lone season playing in the Atlantic Coast Conference, a move prompted by pandemic-altered schedules.
The Bulldogs will be making their second CFP appearance when they meet second-seeded Michigan (12-1) in the Orange Bowl. Coach Jim Harbaugh and the Wolverines are in the playoff for the first time after winning the Big Ten for the first time since 2004. Michigan, which went 2-4 last season, is also the first team to make the playoff after being unranked in the preseason AP Top 25.
This will be the first matchup of the two historic programs — no team in college football history has won more games than Michigan —- since 1965. The Bulldogs beat the Wolverines 15-7 in the Big House that year.