College football’s two-day Bacchanalia of conference football championship games is over and despite imbibing heavily in the festivities, I’m not too hung-over to offer some thoughts on what we have learned from the Saturday offerings.
James Franklin did it again, coaching his Penn State team to yet another loss against a highly ranked opponent, in this case falling to Oregon. 45-37, in the Big Ten championship game.
Franklin apologists will note that his Nittany Lions are 11-2 and still will advance to the college football national championship playoffs. I will note that Penn State already has suffered its annual loss to Ohio State, likely avoided losing to Michigan only because the Wolverines were not on the schedule, and very easily could have lost to Minnesota (a 26-25 win) and Southern Cal (a 33-30 comeback win). This team is a few plays away from being 9-4.
All that having been said, Penn State will host a playoff game and, according to a late projection from USA Today, might end up having ACC champion Clemson, a last-second, 34-31 winner over SMU, coming north days before Christmas. Considering that Clemson has a decimated running back corps, and would be a team from warmer climes forced to play in unfavorable weather, this is a good matchup for Penn State. Early forecasts for that time period in State College call for temperatures in the 30s and that sounds about right for that time of year. The wild card is whether there will be snow, or maybe freezing rain and ice. And the question becomes, can the weather give Penn State enough of an edge to offset the Franklin coaching curse?
But, regardless of what happens next, at least Franklin has the joy he got from having his team throw for a touchdown on the final play of what became a 44-7 win over Maryland in the regular-season finale.
Beyond Penn State, the question of the moment, one we raised yesterday in this space, is how the all-seeing and all-knowing selection committee will interpret the conference playoff results. The ABC announcers for the SMU-Clemson game were very vocal afterward that 11-2 SMU should not be sent packing from the 12-team field in favor of 9-3 Alabama, which didn’t need to play this week, having failed to qualify for the SEC title game. I agree that SMU should be in the 12-team field and Alabama should be out, but that’s not what I’m expecting to hear later today. Hope I’m wrong.
Georgia-Texas for the SEC title was an epic battle, won 22-19 in dramatic fashion in overtime by Georgia. But all the SEC loyalists who pan the ACC in making the case for Alabama, would do well to note that in just the previous game, the SEC champion Bulldogs needed a miraculous fourth-quarter recovery and eight overtimes to edge Georgia Tech, 44-42. That would be a 7-5 Tech team from the ACC that was not good enough to qualify for that conference’s championship game.
And that Georgia team now has beaten Texas twice this season. Texas has played a soft schedule. Consider that Texas led the SEC standings at 7-1. Eight other teams finished 5-3 or better. Texas lost to Georgia (6-2) in the regular season as already mentioned and beat Texas A&M (5-3). But Texas did not play any of the other six teams with winning SEC records. Thank you, Mr. Schedulemaker.
Arizona State, despite playing short-handed at wide receiver, sure looked impressive in a 45-19 beatdown of Iowa State in the Big 12 championship. The good news is this likely will get the Sun Devils a first-round bye and they won’t get sentenced to a game in some far north outpost where they would be at a considerable disadvantage.
And, finally, I can only hope the powers-that-be are done expanding the playoff field. Despite the griping we will hear this year from those who don’t make it, 12 is enough. As one analyst noted Saturday, all the whiners had to do was win another game and they would be in the field. Well said!
Sam Ross Jr's site 