The final College Football Playoff poll was released around noon this past Sunday. The past few weeks have been nothing but dramatic and full of chaos. We would see top school after top school lose such as Ohio State, Georgia, Notre Dame, Miami, and most noticeably Alabama. Yes, it was looking as if we were going to have our first Bama-less playoff his year, but nope.
Before the final top four were announced Sunday, the 4 spot was up for grabs and had the college football world guessing who would it go to; would it be a 1 loss non-conference champion Alabama or a 2 loss Big-10 champion Ohio State.
Both schools had compelling arguments. You’d hear the Buckeyes faithful or just Bama haters scream conference champions or they had more top 10 wins than Bama had. Then you would hear Bama’s side scream “31 points” referencing Ohio State’s loss to Iowa.
In the end, We get the Alabama Crimson Tide to fill in the top 4 of the college football playoffs. With that said, it was interesting to hear the “explanation” that Texas Tech AD Kirby Hocutt gave as to why the Tide were the clear choice to fill in the top 4.
“The selection committee looked at a one-loss Alabama team with that loss coming against the final ranking No. 7 team Auburn in a very competitive game,” selection committee chairman Kirby Hocutt said on ESPN. “We compared that to a two-loss Ohio State team — obviously with one loss at home to No. 2 Oklahoma — but more damaging was the 31-point loss to unranked Iowa. We spent a great amount of time last night into the morning — beginning at 7:30 this morning — talking about the full body of work. Now that the complete season is in front of us, the selection committee just favored Alabama’s full body of work over that of Ohio State. It was consistent over the course of the year, as we saw Alabama play week-in and week-out, our rankings showed when we start with a clean piece of paper every week, that Alabama was the better football team.”
Bama did have one Top 10 win against Florida State the first weekend of the season, but Florida State became irrelevant and not finishing in the top 25 by seasons end.
Well, let us get to a break down of the final four of the 2017-2018 college football season.
1. Clemson
The defending national champions come away with the #1 spot with 43 #1 votes. You could say they are deserving of the #1 spot despite a bad loss to Syracuse earlier in the year. However the Tigers have been consistent all year long with a ginormous ACC Championship win over former #2 Miami 38-3. You could say that game put the exclamation point on their #1 ranking.
However, the #2 team can also make a case that they belong at the #1 spot.
2. Oklahoma
The Sooners have dominated throughout the year, and you can thank their Heisman contending quarterback Baker Mayfield for that. Throughout most of the Sooners season they dominated through the air averaging 367.4 passing yards per game ranking third in the nation and fourth in points peer game (44.9). The one thing that could very well be their downfall and could lose the championship is their defense, or lack their of. Their air raid offense can only get them so far. You know the old saying ” Defense wins championships”, when it comes to the other three teams in this fight for a national title, they are going to need all the defense they can get.
3. Georgia
I have liked Georgia all year. Their offense has been quite impressive all season long. And their defense has been very stifling. The Bulldogs defense are fourth in the nation in yards allowed (270.9), and tied for third allowing 13.2 points per game.
The Bulldogs have a great boost of confidence not just with those statistics regarding their defense, the Bulldogs take home the SEC coach of the year in Kirby Smart who lead the Bulldogs to the Playoffs in just his second year as head coach. The Bulldogs also bring to Athens Freshman of the Year award in quarterback Jake Fromm.
4. Alabama
The one school that made the playoff committee’s job a little to hard. Well that’s what many people would have you believe. Yes they didn’t win their conference like the other three schools did. As stated before, they have one top 10 win against Florida Stat when they were ranked #2 but FSU finished 6-6 of the season which makes that win seem a bit irrelevant. However the Tide has dominated their opponents except against Mississippi State that took a late scoring touchdown by the Tide to win the game 31-24.
The Tide’s one and only loss came at the hands of their in-state rival the Auburn Tigers in the annual “Iron Bowl”. game 6-14.
Playoff Prediction and Champion:
2018 Sugar Bowl:
Clemson vs. Alabama
Winner- Alabama
2018 Rose Bowl:
Oklahoma vs Georgia.
Winner- Georgia
National Championship:
Georgia vs Alabama
The SEC Championship we all believed would happen. But any given Saturday right?
Winner- Georgia