Dan Lanning isn’t the kind of coach who would cry foul or complain. So, when Oregon received the No. 1 overall seed in the first 12-team College Football Playoff bracket, Lanning didn’t focus on the part that the rest of us did: The Ducks’ path to the national championship.
To win it all, Oregon will potentially have to go through the three toughest teams in the bracket — Ohio State (in the quarterfinals), Texas (in the semifinals) and Georgia (in the championship game). On Selection Sunday, the Ducks were the odds-on favorite to win the title, but those three teams had the next-best odds.
“What an opportunity, right?” Lanning said of the Ducks’ draw. “In our world, we always talk about red light, green light. Focus on the things you can control. That’s what we’re going to focus on, and winning a national championship isn’t supposed to be easy.
“If our path’s a little bit tougher, kudos to us if we go through it and take care of business.”
As the Ducks prepare to take on No. 8 Ohio State at the Rose Bowl, their path to the championship game again takes center stage. Oregon had a first-round bye, which was incredibly valuable for a team that has played 13 games already this season and hopes to play three more. But is the bye more valuable than a more favorable path? Or will the path cause the Ducks to trip up before the national championship game on Jan. 20? We’ll find out soon.
It is odd that we’re spending so much time on this because in every other sport that uses a bracket to set up its postseason, the top overall seed is specifically and intentionally given the easiest path on paper. That’s how a balanced bracket works. There’s no way to know which individual matchups might be challenging or which lower-seeded team gets red-hot, but the No. 1 overall seed receives the weakest seed of each potential round — and should be favored in each of its games.
But that’s not the case with the 12-team College Football Playoff, because seeds 3 and 4 are not the third- and fourth-highest ranked teams. Boise State, seeded third, was actually ranked ninth by the selection committee in its final set of rankings. Arizona State, seeded fourth, was ranked 12th overall. Because the CFP requires that conference champions be assigned to the top four seeds — to incentivize participation in league title games by rewarding those four teams with byes — the actual third- and fourth-best teams (Texas and Penn State) are under-seeded. And so on down the list.
Ohio State, for example, was the sixth-best team in the field. But the Buckeyes are seeded eighth, which makes it unfair to Oregon that the two teams are forced to meet so early in bracket. Meanwhile, No. 5 Texas and No. 6 Penn State (two teams that lost their respective conference championship games and had to play in the first round) are now favored in their quarterfinal matchups despite being, technically, the lower-seeded teams. Texas is favored by 13.5 points over Arizona State, per BetMGM; Penn State is favored by 11.5 points over Boise State. If both teams cruise through to the semifinals after blowout wins in the first round, does anyone think they’d complain about not getting a bye? The path would be worth it.
Meanwhile, Oregon is a 2.5-point underdog in its own quarterfinal — which, again, seems backwards when discussing the No. 1 overall seed playing its first CFP game.
So, here’s where the rubber will meet the road. The Ducks have had the past three weeks off, giving them time to rest, recover and get healthier. Teams that played in the first round are more banged up for having endured the additional wear and tear — Notre Dame lost standout defensive lineman Rylie Mills for the season in its game against Indiana, and Texas suffered multiple injuries to starting offensive linemen in its game against Clemson — which is why coaches will tell you that earning that bye is incredibly valuable. That applies to not just Oregon but Georgia, Boise State and Arizona State, too.
“The real advantage is giving your guys an opportunity to get some rest and recovery in a really long season,” Lanning said back on Selection Sunday. “There’s an advantage there for sure, and certainly an advantage getting an opportunity to know who you’re going to play. You don’t know which team, but it’s a little bit more like NFL football where you get an opportunity to prepare for both, have a great plan for both, and then be in position to be able to execute that when you get to that point.”
And with Ohio State beating Tennessee, Oregon drew the opponent it’s even more familiar with of the two. The Ducks beat the Buckeyes by one point in a thriller back in October.
But it’s not easy to beat a team twice, particularly one as talented as Ohio State’s. It would also be difficult to beat Texas the following round and perhaps Georgia or Notre Dame the round after that.
“The path to the end is tough, which is exciting for our team and certainly for me,” Lanning said earlier this week.
He’s not wrong. Winning this whole thing is supposed to be hard. But this hard? As the top overall seed? We’ll find out soon if it’s too much to bear.
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