CFP playoff field set; SMU in, Bama out … For those that missed it earlier in the day, but the initial 12-team CFP college football playoff field was announced earlier this afternoon. There were no surprises among the 4-seeded teams with conference champions Oregon, Georgia, Boise State and Arizona getting opening round byes. Indeed, the only surprise of sorts was that two-loss SMU got the final wild card berth over 3-loss Alabama despite the fact that the Tide played a much harder. And while the committee did piously explain choosing the Mustangs, who did not beat a ranked team all season long compared with Alabama that pretty much played ranked teams all season long, in the end, they took the easy way out because nobody was going to complain if SMU didn’t get in except maybe the people at SMU, whereas they’re be a lot of blowback from just about everybody outside the SEC if Alabama got in. Ask the folks at Penn State who were going to have to play the last team in whether they’d rather fac SMU or Alabama. Right, silly question. In fact, nobody is likely happier with the draw than Penn State which will Boise State in the quarters if they beat SMU. For the most part, though, its a sterling bracket leading inquiring minds to ask ‘what took you guys so long?’ In those other opening round games Texas will host Clemson, Tennessee will be at Ohio State and Notre Dame will host Indiana. if for nothing else the state championship! Here’s the full bracket courtesy of ESPN.
