After a long and winding regular season the College Football Playoff bracket is finally set.
A few initial thoughts:
* Georgia’s draw is about the best it could have hoped for. The three teams I think are most worrisome (Oregon, Ohio State, and Texas) are on the other side of the bracket and Georgia wouldn’t face any of them until the title game. That’s about the best we could hope for. I can’t prove it, but I think Georgia is at #2 because of its strength of schedule, and the committee knowing that if the Dawgs had faced Arkansas at home rather than either Ole Miss or Bama on the road the Dawgs would likely be 11-1.
- As I write this we still don’t exactly know Carson Beck’s status. But one of the occupational hazards of my day job is playing amateur orthopedist, and that looked a lot like a UCL injury to me. That’s an uncommon injury in football, but happens a lot to baseball players. The treatment is usually between 3-6 weeks for a lesser UCL sprain/strain, and potentiallly Tommy John surgery for a serious tear. Which is to say the odds are very good that Georgia will be playing the winner of Indiana/Notre Dame with Gunner Stockton under center. That makes the extra week that comes with a bye just that much more important.
* Some have argued that in taking SMU over Alabama the committee clearly discounted strength if schedule. I think that’s a bit too simplistic a read. I think the committee knew it would face a lot of criticism if it allowed SMU to drop out after playing auto-bid Clemson down to the final second in one of those title games it said it wasn’t going to penalize teams for playing in. Alabama however made that decision a lot easier by dropping a three touchdown decision to Oklahoma late in the year.
* This Texas/Clemson game feels like it was taylor-made to make a lot of people miserable. If Texas wins their national title hopes will be reignited. If Dabo Swinney wins, he will be insufferable as he shrieks about no one believing in “little ole Clemson.” Whichever fan base loses is going to moan about it interminably. I can’t wait.
* The Indiana/Notre Dame game has the potential to be both entertaining on the field and interesting from a storytelling perspective. If Indiana beats Notre Dame in a playoff game in South Bend it would be potentially the funniest moment of what has been a very funny college football season (assuming your team hasn’t spent it playing repeated overtimes and struggling with UMass).
* Tennessee/Ohio State is sneakily a matchup of fanbases who think they’re different from each other but really aren’t. The Ohio Valley region is a more homogenous biome than its inhabitants believe. Also, if Ryan Day’s team loses this one, and especially if they look bad doing it, he may be on a hotter seat than any coach with that win total probably should be.
* Over the next few days we’ll certainly hear complaining about Arizona State and Boise State getting byes. Given that Arizona State wasn’t even ranked in the top 25 until 21 days ago I get that. But I think the direction the playoff is heading in the future (likely 2026) is 14 teams, with only the top two getting a bye. In practice, that will probably almost always be the SEC and Big Ten champs (like it would have been this season). That will have the added benefit of giving those title games some urgency.
Your thoughts on the opening round matchups are obviously welcome in the comments.
Go ‘Dawgs!!!