Georgia wins the SEC title and gets a bye, but heads into playoffs with an injury at QB
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Georgia earned a spot in the College Football Playoff and an almost certain first-round bye despite an ugly win that included an injury to starting quarterback Carson Beck.
The Dawgs, ranked fifth by the CFP selection committee, clawed out a 22-19 overtime victory Saturday against Texas that gave them the Southeastern Conference title and, maybe more importantly, the week off that goes with it.
It gives Beck time to recover and takes some power out of the hands of the selection committee, which can consider injuries in its rankings but can’t do much about giving those weeks off to the four best conference champs.
Ugly as this game was — Georgia got outgained 389-277 — and even with Beck's health in question, it's hard to see Georgia not in that group.
The committee releases the pairings Sunday for a first-of-its-kind, 12-team playoff to decide the national champion.
No. 2 Texas fell to 11-2: That’s 0-2 against Georgia and 11-0 against everyone else. The Longhorns now face a first-round game on Dec. 20 or 21 — probably at home, but nothing's for sure.
The committee isn’t supposed to engineer the rankings to avoid early-round rematches, so it’s at least a possibility we could see UT-Georgia III as soon as the quarterfinals.
This event in Atlanta laid bare yet another awkward issue related to the CFP's decision to award byes to the four top-ranked conference champions.
There’s a good argument that Georgia (11-2), with two losses and an injured starting quarterback, would not be anything near a top-four team. There’s an even better argument that other conference champs this weekend, No. 10 Boise State and No. 15 Arizona State, have not built a top-four resume.
But at least two — and maybe all three — could find themselves starting the playoffs in the quarterfinals not the first round.
The ACC title game, set for later Saturday between No. 8 and No. 17 Clemson, will send the most dominos falling in the 12-team bracket.
If SMU wins, and the selection committee doesn’t drastically change its thinking, then No. 11 Alabama (9-3) would appear to be safely in, while Miami (10-2), which finished a spot behind the Crimson Tide despite one fewer loss, will likely be out.
But if Clemson pulls an upset, the committee will be left to choose between SMU and Alabama.
That SMU-Clemson game could also mean a lot to Arizona State.
The Sun Devils clobbered Iowa State 45-19 in the Big 12 title game and have now won their last two games by a combined score of 94-26.
But at No. 15, they were not among the four best-ranked conference champions, all of whom receive first-round byes. If Clemson upsets SMU, Arizona State might find itself in that position.
A preseason Big 12 media poll had the Sun Devils finishing last in their new league. After finishing first, coach Kenny Dillingham referenced ASU’s record with Sam Leavitt in the lineup in lobbying for good seeding.
“We’re 11-1 with our quarterback, and we’re Big 12 champs,” Dillingham said. “I think we should be treated like an 11-1 team.”
In the Big Ten, Oregon, top-ranked and the only undefeated team in the country, doesn't have to sweat its spot in the playoffs. Still, Saturday night's game against No. 3 Penn State was for the Big Ten trophy and a first-round bye.
If Penn State prevails, then there’s an argument that the Nittany Lions could end up with that top seed.
A handful of teams aren’t playing this weekend and don’t have much to worry about. No. 4 Notre Dame should get a home game. (Maybe the Irish, an independent, should get a bye, too, but that’s a topic for another day.)
No. 9 Indiana, one of four Big Ten teams projected to make the playoff, will probably be on the road.
In between, there is the matter of No. 6 Ohio State and No. 7 Tennessee. Last week’s projected bracket paired the 10-2 teams in a first-round game to be played at the Horseshoe in Columbus, Ohio.
But their rankings were flip-flopped from the way voters for the AP Top 25 placed them, and the difference matters a lot. Like Ohio Stadium, Neyland Stadium in Knoxville also seats 100,000-plus and provides one of the best home-field advantages in the game.
All of which led Vols athletic director Danny White to weigh in — not about byes, but asking for a return to computer-based rankings that were used more than a decade ago in a previous iteration of the postseason (the Bowl Championship Series, or BCS).
“I think it would leave a lot less consternation on the back end that we’re seeing all across the country right now," White said in an interview with UT’s radio personalities. “Everyone understands what the parameters are and it is what it is.
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