The College Football Playoff bracket is coming into focus, but not without plenty of potential controversy.
No. 1 Oregon, No. 5 Georgia, No. 10 Boise State, No. 13 Arizona State and No. 17 Clemson won their respective conference championship games to book tickets to the 12-team playoff. Now the focus shifts to the selection committee’s controversial decision over which team earns the final at-large bid to the field, No. 7 SMU or No. 11 Alabama.
In the SEC, the first overtime in the 33-year history of the championship game ended with the Bulldogs beating No. 2 Texas 22-19 on Trevor Etienne’s 4-yard touchdown run in the bottom of the first extra frame.
Backup quarterback Gunner Stockton replaced an injured Carson Beck at halftime and led Georgia to four scoring drives, including overtime. The second win this year against Texas will slot the Bulldogs into the quarterfinals and drop the Longhorns into an at-large playoff bid.
In the Big Ten, Oregon outscored Penn State 45-37 to finish the year as the only unbeaten team in the Bowl Subdivision. The Ducks will be the top seed in the playoff bracket while the Nittany Lions should land at No. 5, leading to a matchup with Clemson in the first round.
Courtesy of a 56-yard field goal as time expired, the Tigers’ 34-31 win against SMU will force the selection committee to chose between the Mustangs and Alabama. While the Crimson Tide have wins against Georgia, South Carolina, Missouri and LSU, that the Mustangs lost by a whisker in a Power Four conference championship game will make it difficult to dump them out of the playoff picture, especially when they started three spots ahead of Alabama.
Including results from Friday night, here are the winners and losers from conference championship weekend:
Far from perfect but good enough to beat Texas for the second time, Georgia doesn’t resemble the juggernaut of the program’s recent past. But there is a formula built around a solid running game — backs Etienne and Nate Frazier had a combined 141 yards on 6.4 yards per carry — and a defense that rebounded very nicely from last week’s rivalry win against Georgia Tech. With the win, the Bulldogs will slot in as one of the top two seeds in the bracket and as one of the favorites to win a third national championship in four years.
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Clemson’s win will make them the No. 12 seed in the playoff. That this team is in the playoff at all is at once confounding — the Tigers have never looked like one of the best in the country — and also a great example of how conference championship games can retain a high level of importance in the 12-team era. While no longer a playoff lock, SMU should be able to hold off No. 11 Alabama and come in just ahead of the Tigers as the last at-large team in the field. The Mustangs have two losses to ranked teams, six wins against bowl teams and only two Power Four wins decided by single digits. The Mustangs were also one of two Power Four teams, along with Oregon, to go unbeaten in conference play.
No unquestioned No. 1 team has ever been so ignored as the unbeaten Ducks. As first-year members of the Big Ten, Oregon scored at least 30 points in every league game but one and enters the playoff as the favorite to become the first national champion of the 12-team era. Quarterback Dillon Gabriel booked his place as a Heisman Trophy finalist with 283 passing yards and four scores, receiver Tez Johnson had 11 receptions for 181 yards and running back Jordan James finished with 87 yards and two touchdowns as Oregon ripped through a defense that entered the weekend ranked fourth nationally in yards per game. The Ducks are what their record says they are: the best team in the country.
Let’s get this out of the way: If Beck is healthy for the postseason, there is zero, zero, zero quarterback controversy at Georgia. Give Stockton credit, though, for stepping out of the cold to spark this offense and for taking a vicious hit at the tail end of a scramble in overtime to put the Bulldogs in position for the game-winning score. (Let’s remove credit for a horrendous interception with under three minutes remaining in regulation that helped Texas force overtime.) The redshirt sophomore completed 12 of 16 attempts and had 79 yards of total offense and led a comeback in the second half. Can’t ask for much more under the circumstances.
Arizona State completed an out-of-nowhere run to the top of the Big 12 by beating No. 16 Iowa State 45-19 to book a playoff berth. Running back Cam Skattebo made another statement with 208 yards of offense and three scores and quarterback Sam Leavitt continued to play nearly error-free football with 219 passing yards and three touchdowns without an interception. While seeding remains to be determined, the Sun Devils will likely be on the road for the opening round. After winning three games last season, Arizona State storms into the postseason as winners of six in a row, three against ranked competition, and eight of nine overall.
The Broncos beat No. 19 UNLV 21-7 on Friday night to win the Mountain West and secure the Group of Five’s bid to the playoff. Boise held the Rebels to just 3.9 yards per play if taking out an 86-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter by UNLV senior Kylin James. In his last showcase before next week’s Heisman ceremony, Boise running back Ashton Jeanty went for 205 yards and a touchdown on 32 carries, giving him 2,497 yards on the year — the fourth most in a single season in FBS history. All that’s left to determine is whether Boise State is one of the top four conference champions and earns an opening-round bye into the quarterfinals. That’s a very safe assumption based on where the Broncos have been in the rankings these past few weeks.
The former West Virginia, Michigan and Arizona coach guided the Gamecocks’ seamless promotion from the Championship Subdivision, culminating in Friday’s 52-14 rout of Western Kentucky to take the Conference USA crown in his third season. JSU ran for 386 yards on 56 carries, averaged 11.7 yards per pass attempt, dominated the clock and were plus-two in turnovers — a pretty clear roadmap for a blowout win. This came one week after the Gamecocks lost 19-17 to the Hilltoppers; in hindsight, it’s clear Rodriguez and the offense purposely played things close to the vest. His success at Jacksonville State has helped rebuilt Rodriguez’s reputation and is one reason why he should be a legitimate contender for the opening with West Virginia.
Ohio beat Miami (Ohio) 38-3 in the MAC championship game to earn the program’s first conference title since 1968. After averaging a season-low 3.8 yards per play in a 30-20 loss to the RedHawks during the regular season, Ohio went for 467 yards on 6.4 yards per snap with all five touchdown drives traveling at least 75 yards. After winning three games in his debut season, fourth-year head coach and longtime Frank Solich assistant Tim Albin is the first in program history to win 10 games three years in a row.
Marshall beat Louisiana-Lafayette 31-3 to capture the Sun Belt and the program’s first conference title since winning Conference USA in 2014. After giving up a combined 68 points the past two weeks, the Thundering Herd held the Ragin’ Cajuns to just 256 yards, 4.2 yards per play and just a pair of third-down conversions. The Herd lost to Virginia Tech and Ohio State in September but have lost just once the rest of the way in what has become a breakthrough season for coach Charles Huff.
Another loss to Georgia rekindles the simmering debate over who Texas played and defeated in reaching the playoff. The Longhorns’ best win came last Saturday against four-loss Texas A&M, followed by Florida and Michigan. That doesn’t necessarily mean the Longhorns are destined for a first-round playoff loss — this team has looked the part of a national champion against this less-than-stellar schedule. But it’s only fair to be worried about a few things, namely Ewers, the inability of the offensive line to move bodies up front and the winless record against fellow playoff teams. Texas will have plenty to prove later this month.
Iowa State’s inconsistent run defense came up short once again and cost the Cyclones the Big 12 championship and a spot in the playoff. Arizona State was the fifth team overall and the third in the past five games to run for at least 200 yards on Matt Campbell’s team. Meanwhile, the 26-point loss was the Cyclones’ first by more than 10 points since losing 62-14 to TCU in the 2022 season finale.
Behind a combined 284 rushing yards and five scores from running back Kanye Udoh and quarterback Bryson Daily, No. 23 Army scored a slight upset and captured the first conference championship in program history in Friday night’s 35-14 win against Tulane. With rival Navy to close the regular season and then a bowl game, the Black Knights are in line to break the school’s single-season record for wins set in 2018. For Tulane, the blowout loss comes one week after a backbreaking defeat to Memphis and erases a good chunk of the positive vibes coming out of coach Jon Sumrall’s debut season.
