It’s conference championship
weekend in college football! I can’t believe we’re already here. It seems like
just yesterday that I was writing my “2018 College Football Meat Sandwich” and
nailing all my preseason predictions like…. (checks notes)… Michigan State making
the playoff. Oh wait, crap, I’m an idiot.
For the first time ever,
all ten conferences on the FBS level are going to have a league championship
game. I wasn’t aware of that, because spoiler, I don’t exactly spend a lot of
my time watching MAC football. Hate to disappoint you guys, but it’s true. For
some reason though, my Angry Old Man, who is so old and senile that I’m surprised
he even knows how to work a TV anymore, implored me yesterday to pick all ten
conference championships games with the threat that he’d write me out of the
will if I “disappointed him again”. “If you don’t pick all ten conference
championship games tomorrow, you’ll be the biggest disappointment in my life
since, hell, your older brother!” he told me, before he started stuffing his face with Cheetos
until he passed out in a puddle of his own spittle and cheese residue. My
loving Pa. It’s fine. This is a normal father-son relationship right? Right?
Friday
MAC
Championship: Northern Illinois vs Buffalo (in Detroit)
Buffalo is a 3.5 point
favorite and has ten wins for the first time in school history. Northern Illinois
is 7-5 and their claim to fame on the national college football stage is that
time they played Florida State in the 2013 Orange Bowl and lost 31-10. Whoops,
that’s all I know.
Prediction: Buffalo
Pac
12 Championship: #17 Utah vs #11 Washington (in Santa Clara)
The Huskies lost three
times this year by a combined ten points. If they don’t blow the Auburn game
with back-to-back red zone turnovers or miss a potential game-winning field goal
on the last play of regulation against Oregon, this could very well be a
playoff play-in game for Washington. Instead, they’ll be settling for a shot at
a conference championship, their second in three years. I think they’ll get it
done. Utah has had a nice year, but you could argue they're in this position by just being
less bad then the rest of the teams in the Pac 12 South, which was arguably the
worst division in the Power 5 this season. I’m struggling to find a good win on
the Utah schedule; BYU last week, where they came back from 20 at halftime? 7-4
Stanford? They lost to Washington State and Arizona, and when they played this
same Washington team earlier in the season, they, you guessed it, were defeated
21-7. I think we’ll have a similar result tonight.
Prediction: Washington
Saturday
Sun
Belt: Louisiana at Appalachian State
This is the first ever
Sun Belt Championship Game, and also a rematch of a game earlier this season
that App State won 27-17. I’d be tempted to take the “Ragin’ Cajuns” here, only
because that’s an awesome team nickname, but it's at App State’s home
stadium, and in a game between two teams that I’ve probably watched a combined
30 minutes of, that’s good enough reason to go with the Mountaineers.
Prediction: Appalachian
State
Conference
USA: UAB at MTSU
The craziest thing about
this game is that UAB got rid of football for two years (2015 and 2016),
revived the program just last year, and have already found a way to return to the championship
game of their conference in just their second season back. Not that it’ll
make a difference tomorrow, of course, but good for them right?
Prediction: MTSU
American
Conference: Memphis at #8 UCF
Can UCF make the playoff?
Should they even really be considered? I’d say no to both of those questions
due to their lack of quality Power 5 wins coupled with the fact that they lost their
star quarterback McKenzie Milton to a horrifying knee injury last weekend. Does
anyone really want to see them travel to Arlington to play Alabama in a semifinal
game and get their doors blown off? How is that great for the viewer? Sure,
Alabama might destroy anyone they play in that game, but I think Kyler Murray
and Oklahoma or Dwayne Haskins and Ohio State and would have a better chance of
pulling off a shocking upset due to their similar athletes and overall team
speed. Plus, both of those teams have significantly better resumes. Like even
if Georgia, Oklahoma, and Ohio State all lost this weekend, I still can’t see
an argument for putting UCF in if they win their league. Like great, their best
win would be… five loss Pittsburgh? Come on. Everyone is always like, “Oh, we
should give the little guy a shot!” But why? They haven’t earned it and they don’t
come close to fulfilling the standard of “four best teams”. And when they'd get
blown out by 35 points against Alabama, we’d all feel stupid for ever thinking to
include them.
Of course, winning the
conference tomorrow won’t be easy. When they played Memphis earlier this season, the
Golden Knights surrendered almost 500 yards of offense and had to rally from
down 16 late in the second quarter to pull off a 31-30 victory. Memphis isn’t
going to roll over for them here either, though I ultimately think UCF will win and
play in a New Years Six Bowl Game for the second consecutive year.
Prediction: UCF
Mountain
West: #25 Fresno State at #22 Boise State
This isn’t your father’s
Boise State team of a decade ago that used to play in BCS bowls, but they also
haven’t lost since October 6 and already beat Fresno State a month ago.
Prediction: Boise State
Big
12: #14 Texas vs #5 Oklahoma (in Arlington)
Lot at stake here for
both teams. Texas hasn’t won a conference title since 2009 with Colt McCoy and
Mack Brown, and pulling it off in Tom Herman’s second year while beating
Oklahoma for the second time in the same season would be an incredible building
block for this program that has been wandering in the wilderness the last
decade. For Oklahoma, it’d be their fourth straight Big 12 Title and sixth
since 2010, and with a loss by Georgia, probably puts them in the playoff. It
also should lock up the Heisman for
Kyler Murray, though I think the voters will end up going with Tua.
The argument here for
Murray winning the Heisman is simple; he’s the most valuable player in the country. He’s saddled with
an absolutely atrocious defense, probably the worst of any team that’s ever
been in playoff contention, which has forced him to be exceptional every single
week; hell, he guided the offense to 59 points last week at West Virginia and
they still only won by three. He hasn’t had a stinker the entire year
despite the fact that he knows going into every game that he’ll need to score
in the 40s.
Crazy stat here; in the
month of November alone, the Sooners gave up 189 points. For some context, including
their two playoff games from last season, Alabama has given up just 194 points
in the 2018 calendar year. Good lord.
This game is going to be
another shootout, just like it was back in October when Texas won 48-45 on a
last second field goal after Oklahoma erased a 21 point fourth quarter deficit.
I think the Sooners win the rematch because of the superior head
coach-quarterback combo, though the score will probably be 51-50. And if they
do, get ready for Oklahoma-Alabama, probably at Jerry World. That’s going to be
a hell of a game even if the Tide will probably put up 70 on them.
Prediction: Oklahoma
Big
Ten: #21 Northwestern vs #6 Ohio State (in Indianapolis)
Northwestern is making
their first appearance in the Big Ten Title Game despite losing all three of
their out of conference games. They somehow only beat one team that finished
with less than five losses, and that was four loss Iowa. Why isn’t this game
51-17 tomorrow in favor of Ohio State? The Buckeyes are fresh off their best
game of the season, and absolute demolition of rival Michigan, and need a good
showing in this one if they want a shot at making the playoff.
Assuming things play out
the way I think this weekend, the Buckeyes are going to come up a spot short in
the playoff for the second year in a row. The committee is going to look at both
them and Oklahoma, two teams with flawed resumes, and say, “Hell, I know OU’s
defense sucks, but their only loss was by three points on a neutral field to
a Texas team that finished second in the Big 12. And oh yeah, they just avenged
that loss by winning this weekend. Ohio State’s loss was by 29 on the road
against a 6-6 Purdue team. Plus, it’s not like Ohio State’s defense is phenomenal
either. I mean, we all saw that Maryland game. And they did still give up 39
points to Michigan’s limited offense….”
Prediction: Ohio State
ACC:
Pittsburgh vs #2 Clemson (in Charlotte)
This is the blowout of
the weekend. You might’ve missed it with all the great college football from
last weekend, but Pittsburgh managed just 3
points against a crappy Miami team last Saturday. Why won’t this one be
75-10? Here’s the scores of Clemson’s last five ACC games: 63-3, 41-7, 59-10,
77-16, and 27-7. That’s a combined 267-43!
Side note: not breaking any
news here, but how incredible has Dabo Swinney been? He’s about to take Clemson
to their fourth straight playoff and ACC Title, he’s won a national
championship, had 8 straight ten win seasons, and is an incredible 61-6 in his
last 67 games. 61-6! For comparison, in his last 67 games at Alabama, Nick
Saban is only slightly better, at 63-4. No one could’ve ever envisioned Dabo
getting it rolling to this level a decade ago when he got promoted from being
the wide receivers coach. My Angry Old Man, with his coldest take ever, even
said back when he got the job that “no one named Dabo Swinney can be a successful Division 1 head coach”. Right on there Pops. Oh crap, a
shot like that might get me taken out of the will as well. Crap… hopefully he
got irritated at the amount of typos I had this week, raged, tossed his phone
across the room, and went back to stuffing his face with Thanksgiving
leftovers.
Prediction: Clemson
SEC:
#4 Georgia vs #1 Alabama (in Atlanta)
The game of the weekend,
at least on paper, is the rematch of last year’s overtime thriller in the
national championship game that made Tua a college football legend. The Tide
have slept-walked through the first halves of their last couple of games,
including a weird 10-10 tie with the Citadel and only a 17-14 lead on a bad
Auburn team last week. Sure, they opened it up significantly in the second halves
of both games, but I wouldn’t think they’d want to get off to a slow start
against a Georgia team that seems to have fixed all their issues and might
be playing better than any team in the country right now. The ‘Dawgs have won
every game by at least 17 points since their lone loss to LSU back on October
13th.
Of course, I could argue
the Tide have come out so slow the last couple of weeks because they’re bored
with everything right now. No matter how sloppy they play, no opponent has
been able to come within 22 points of them the entire season, and it’s got to
be difficult for Saban to continue to push the right motivational buttons for a
team that wins by three touchdowns every week, even with their C+ game. I’d think the
SEC Championship Game against the fourth ranked team in the country would be
enough to snap them out of their recent malaise, but we’ll see.
There’s a ton at stake
here for the entirety of college football. If Georgia loses then they’re out
and it’s the end of the discussion. But if they were to shock the world and
beat Alabama, then what the hell does the committee do? I think Alabama would
be in because they’d be favored over both Oklahoma and Ohio State by… ten points?
I just think it’d be really hard for the committee to overlook that when they put
together their final rankings on Sunday.
Of course, I don’t think
it’s ultimately going to matter because I think the Tide win by double digits tomorrow.
Prediction: Alabama
Which means I think this
is our Playoff Four:
#1 Alabama vs #4 Oklahoma
#2 Clemson vs #3 Notre Dame
Can’t wait for this
weekend and the playoff!
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