We experienced March Madness. Well, it's a December drama.
College football brackets are held on Sunday afternoons. Twelve teams will participate in the first year of the expanded College Football Playoff.
After four schools were selected in 10 years, the sport adopted expansion to try out more programs. This created even more interest in the regular season and the feeling that the championship was truly up for grabs.
The pairings will be announced shortly after noon. The top four seeds will go to the conference champions rather than the top four teams, which could cause some confusion in the future.
Post prepares for festivities:
Who is No.1?
This is easy. Undefeated Oregon State entered the Big Ten championship game as a heavy favorite, securing the top spot with a 45-37 victory over No. 3 Penn State.
However, other than a bye, there is not much advantage to being the No. 1 seed.
Oregon will play No. 8/No. Since the top four seeds are the conference champions, the winner of the ninth seed is actually likely to face a tougher quarterfinal opponent than the fifth seed faces if it makes it that far.
This is something that will have to be addressed in the future.
Imagine if the No. 2 seed in the SEC or Big 12 were seeded worse than the winner of the AAC or Atlantic 10 in the NCAA Tournament on the hardwood.
Is Alabama included?
The Crimson Tide was expected to play after a closed-door performance at Oklahoma, where they won six games a few weeks ago.
But everything has been fine since then. While Alabama manhandled Auburn in the Iron Bowl, Miami, Ole Miss and Texas A&M all dropped games, moving Karen DeBoer's three-loss team up in the standings.
Heading into the day, most experts felt Alabama was safe as it was ranked No. 11 by the committee. There is a scenario where the Mustangs eliminate the Crimson Tide, as No. 8 SMU dropped the ACC Championship Game to No. 17 Clemson.
SMU lost one less, but fell short of Alabama's home win over Georgia, and got even better with the Bulldogs' win over a powerhouse SEC opponent. And the committee has cut the team's losses by several notches.
It's hard to see Alabama being left out. No. 12 ranked Miami doesn't seem to have a realistic shot, but it's actually ranked No. 13 because No. 15 ranked Arizona State received an automatic as Big 12 champions. There is.
What will the opening match be like?
Oregon (Big Ten), Georgia (SEC) and No. 10 Boise State (the highest-ranked champion in the Group of Five conferences) will get three of the byes.
And the fourth university would be either Arizona State University or Clemson University. Arizona State has a slight advantage with one less loss.
Notre Dame, with one loss, clinched the top at-large and the No. 5 seed, drawing with Clemson in an interesting opening matchup.
I don't think the committee will punish Texas too much for losing in the conference championship game.
Texas falls to No. 6 and will play No. 11 Alabama. Penn State performed well against Oregon State, but lost the head-to-head matchup to Ohio State, giving the Buckeyes the advantage.
As a result, No. 7 seed Ohio State will play No. 10 seed Indiana, and Penn State will drop to No. 8 seed and play No. 9 seed Tennessee.
There are some potential blockbusters in there, highlighted by the Texas-Alabama showdown.
All four contests will be held on campus, with the quarterfinals moved to the bowl site. That's also an attractive aspect of this new system.
