Sweet like Sugar: Clemson heads back to the College Football Playoff
Clemson is back in the College Football Playoff for the third consecutive season and it sure is sweet.
This year the Tigers are headed to New Orleans to play in the Sugar Bowl against Alabama in a rematch of Clemson's 35-31 win in the National Championship game a year ago.
It will also be Clemson's first trip to the Sugar Bowl since 1959 when the Tigers wore their legendary 'Sugar Blues' jerseys against LSU.
The No. 1 seed Tigers (12-1) will face the No. 4 seed Alabama (11-1) at 8:45 PM on January 1st. The Rose Bowl will feature No. 2 Oklahoma (12-1), and No. 3 Georgia (12-1). That game will kick at 5:10 PM eastern on the 1st.
For the first time, two teams from the same conference (SEC) are in the college football playoff.
The moment the ranking came out Kirk Herbstreit stated, "If you are a college football fan, you said, 'I think it should be Alabama, but it's going to be Ohio State. There are going to do the politically correct thing,' the committee just made a statement. They are not into appeasing people's agendas."
Just missing the playoff was the Big 10 champion No. 5 Ohio State (11-2) and also No. 6 Wisconsin (12-1).
The winners of the two semifinal matchups will face off in Atlanta on January 8th at 8:00 PM.
Chairman of the Selection Committee Kirby Hocutt stated, "The selection committee looked at a one-loss Alabama team that one loss coming against final ranking No. 7 Auburn in a very competitive game. We compared that to a two-loss Ohio State team. Obviously, the one loss to #2 Oklahoma, more damaging was the 31 point loss to unranked Iowa. The selection committee just favored Alabama's full body of work over that of Ohio State."
Asked if Alabama was unequivocally better than Ohio State Hocutt also stated, "Yes, Alabama was clearly the number four ranked team in the country as a non-champion."
Clemson enters the playoff after a convincing 38-3 win over Miami last night. The Tigers are now 12-1, including a 7-1 mark in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Clemson's resume also boasts wins over seven teams with winning records.
Dabo Swinney was asked about how he would rank the top four teams, "When I evaluate a team, for me, I just watch the tape. I can see pretty quickly how they are built. Especially from the inside out. What type of team they have in the trenches. If you are talking about the playoff teams and this being a selection process you know I think the goal is to get the four best teams. Conference championships should matter, but it can't be the "end-all" you might have a conference champion that's 9-3, 9-4 or whatever."
After the rankings were released, analyst Booger McFarland stated, "Watching the film, the four best teams got in."
As for the Tigers, four of Clemson’s wins have come on the road against top 25 teams at the time. It is the first time Clemson has had four top 25 road wins in one season. The Tigers also enter the playoffs with 10 wins against ESPN's FPI top 40.
Clemson has been in the top four of the Playoff rankings 18 consecutive times, which is second only to Alabama who had a stretch of 20 consecutive top four rankings snapped last week.
Alabama, Clemson, and Ohio State are the only teams that have appeared in all 24 sets of the College Football Playoff rankings.