After months of relentless speculation about the new 12-team College Football Playoff — the comings, the goings, the head-to-head clashes galore — we finally have a bracket.
The first-round, on-campus matchup to get everything started: 10th-seeded Indiana at seventh-seeded Notre Dame on Friday, December 20 (7 p.m., Ch. 7, ESPN). That's some kind of coming together — a traditional basketball school against the home of the Four Horsemen — in a state that bills itself as “the Crossroads of America." Come to think of it, that would also be a fine, fitting motto for the playoff itself.
Other first-round games, all on Saturday, December 21: 11th-seeded SMU at 6 Penn State, 12 Clemson at 5 Texas and 9 Tennessee at 8 Ohio State.
Notre Dame (11-1) opens as an 8-point favorite against the Hoosiers (11-1), who were one of the brightest surprises in college football and whose first-year coach, Curt Cignetti, has become a household name in the sport.
“I didn’t know much about him, so I took a minute and googled him,” Irish counterpart Marcus Freeman admitted Sunday. “He’s done a great job.”
Freeman has elevated his own profile and been linked to potential NFL openings, including with the Bears.
“With team success comes individual success,” he said, “but that’s nothing that’s [taking] any of my attention from preparing for these playoffs.”
The winner of this game will face No. 2 seed Georgia, the champion of the SEC, in a Sugar Bowl quarterfinal in New Orleans on New Year's Day.
There’s so much more about a 12-team playoff to sink one’s teeth into than there ever was under the four-team model. More to speculate about, more to argue about, more to hot-take blow-hardedly about. Fine, I’ll start.
SMU over Alabama was an odd choice: For the selection committee, it came down to two-loss SMU or three-loss Alabama for the final at-large playoff spot. The committee chose the Mustangs, who had only one loss until the ACC championship game, which it lost to Clemson on a 56-yard field goal at the final gun.
I won’t say it was the wrong move, even though SMU’s best wins were against Louisville and Duke, while Alabama played a much tougher schedule. The Crimson Tide’s late-season loss at Oklahoma was so bad, they probably deserved to be humbled.
On the other hand, the Sun-Times asked the oddsmakers at BenOnline.ag what the point spread would be in an Alabama-SMU game and were told the Tide would be favored by 6. The Tide also would be a 2½-point underdog at Penn State, whereas the Mustangs opened as 8½-point ’dogs. Hmm, makes you think.
This model is messed up: Admittedly, seeing Boise State and Arizona State seeded third and fourth, respectively, is a little bit fun just because it’s so different. That said, the 12-team plan of having the four highest-ranked conference champions seeded as the top four — with first-round byes — didn’t even make it one year before being laid bare in all its foolishness.
The committee has Mountain West champ Boise State at No. 9 and Big 12 champ ASU at No. 12 in its current overall team rankings. Getting a bye into the quarterfinals when you’re viewed as the 12th-best team is far more than anyone deserves.
“The rankings themselves, I'll let other people debate,” Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel, the committee chairman, said in a Sunday conference call with reporters. “And I'll let the [conference] commissioners decide how they want to seed the tournament.”
Bah, humbug.
If you’re Texas — No. 3 in the rankings — and haven’t lost to anyone not named Georgia this season, you’re not happy about having to gear up and play a game when four fellow playoff teams are leisurely sipping umbrella drinks.
And if you’re Notre Dame, you dropped two spots in the seeding, too. Hey, maybe the Irish would have won a conference championship game and received a bye had they, you know, been in a conference. There’s something no one has thought of before, right?
Texas, Penn State have the best paths: To the semifinals, that is. Texas is favored by 11 against Clemson and would get Arizona State next in the quarterfinals. We already mentioned the PSU spread against SMU; after that would be Boise State for the Nittany Lions. No bye? Not all bad, the more you look at it.
ILLINOIS-SOUTH CAROLINA IN THE CITRUS
In other bowl news, 9-3 Illinois will face 9-3 South Carolina in the Citrus Bowl on New Year’s Eve (2 p.m., Ch. 7) in Orlando, Florida.
The Illini are 20th in the final CFP rankings, five spots behind the Gamecocks. The teams are 21st and 14th, respectively, in the AP poll. The Gamecocks are coming off a rivalry win at Clemson, blew out Oklahoma and Texas A&M and barely lost to LSU (by three points) and Alabama (by two). The Illini are early 8½-point underdogs.
"Our players are excited to experience a first-class bowl game with a national spotlight against a quality SEC opponent in South Carolina,” coach Bret Bielema said in a statement. “This will be a great reward for our players, staff, and fans to finish the 2024 season on New Year's Eve and send us into 2025.”
