As this year wraps up, so does college football. Throughout the rest of 2024 and the beginning of 2025, many of us will be cheering on our favorite collegiate teams. Each season caps off with playoffs, leaving one team to win the national championship. This year, the bracket looks different than years prior, implementing a 12-team bracket as opposed to the four-team bracket used in the past.
This new bracket gives the winners of each of the four toughest conferences a bye in the tournament. This year, the teams securing the bye are the University of Oregon, which won the Big 10 Championship; the University of Georgia, which won in the SEC; Boise State, which won in the Mountain West Conference; and Arizona State, which won in the Big 12 Conference. The other eight teams were decided by the College Football Playoff Selection Committee, which chooses the teams based on their record and strength of schedule. These teams include (in ranked order) the University of Texas, Penn State, Notre Dame, Ohio State, the University of Tennessee, the University of Indiana, Southern Methodist, and Clemson.
There was some controversy over particular teams not making it into the playoffs. Southern Methodist University (SMU) made it into the playoffs while Alabama did not, which caused debates over which team should have been selected. SMU moved to the ACC conference this year and were very successful with an 8-0 regular season record, only losing one conference game in the conference championship against Clemson. Even though SMU had a good year, some argue Alabama should have been selected because they had a greater strength of schedule. Even though Alabama played some really tough games against excellent teams, they lost to an unranked team, Vanderbilt. This 40-35 loss gave SMU the chance to steal the eleventh spot in the playoffs and put Alabama in the ReliaQuest Bowl on December 31st against the University of Michigan.
Another team that will have to settle for a bowl game is the University of Miami. The usually top-ten-ranked Hurricanes lost two of their last three games to unranked Georgia Tech and Syracuse. These ACC losses took the Canes’ chances of making it to the ACC championship and the playoffs. Not only did these losses affect them, but almost half of their wins were the result of just one possession, making them really close games that some argue they should have lost. This seems to be the opinion of the selection committee members since Miami, which usually makes it into the playoffs, will instead participate in the Pop-Tarts Bowl on December 28th.
People on social media have also argued that the conferences are unbalanced–that schools in the ACC need to have an almost perfect record or win the ACC championship to make it to the playoffs, while the SEC schools can have a 9-3 record and lose to unranked teams and still have a chance at the playoffs.
After talking about the teams we will not be seeing in the National Championship this year, let’s talk about the teams that have a chance of being there. Looking at records alone, Oregon is favored to be in the championship. The Ducks went 13-0 this year, and Oregon is the only team that has yet to lose a game, so they are currently ranked as first. Following them in rankings is Georgia, who lost twice this year–to Alabama and to Ole Miss. After the upset at Ole Miss, Georgia moved from ranking third to twelfth. But the Bulldogs made a comeback to win the SEC championship against Texas, which not only gave them a spot in the playoffs but also a first-round bye. Their chances of success in the playoffs aren’t as good, though, since Georgia’s quarterback, Carson Beck, recently sustained an elbow injury, so we do not know if he will be able to play.
The Indiana Hoosiers and Notre Dame Fighting Irish will compete to play against Georgia in the second round on December 20th, and this Indiana-Notre Dame game promises to be another tossup. In the regular season, both teams finished 11-1, and both easily beat Perdue–the one common opponent in their schedules. Indiana may be the better team, though, since the Fighting Irish were upset by Northern Illinois (which isn’t considered a strong team) early in the season, losing by a 35-yard field goal. Also, the Hoosiers fell short against Ohio State in one of their last regular season games, and no one can fault a program that falls to Ohio the way they can criticize a team for losing to Northern Illinois.
Now let’s take a look at the first-round matchups. At the Horseshoe (Ohio State’s stadium), Ohio State will face Tennessee on December 21st. This game will be an evenly matched game, with Tennessee in the SEC and OSU in the Big 10–both strong conferences–so both teams have a shot at advancing to the second round against the Ducks. Something to keep in mind, though, is that Ohio State played number-one-ranked Oregon early in the season and lost by one point (31-32); however, later in the season, they lost to Michigan (13-10), which no one expected. So that tells us that OSU is a good team that has played well against good teams, but they have also struggled against mediocre teams; how they’ll do in the playoffs, then, is anyone’s guess.
Clemson (the ACC champions) and Texas (the runner-up in the SEC championship) will play each other on December 21st. Both teams lost to Georgia; Clemson lost once, and Texas lost twice to the Bulldogs. Texas is favored to win with a 80.3% win probability because they have had a harder schedule this year and are ranked third, while Clemson comes from an easier conference and is ranked 16th. Whichever team wins will move on to play Boise State in the second round.
Finally, playing in Happy Valley, are Penn State and SMU. These teams have only played each other twice, the first time in 1948 in the Cotton Bowl and the second in 1978. The first time these teams played, they tied, and the second time, Penn State won. Since these teams have not faced any common opponents, it is hard to truly pick who may win; however, Penn State is favored. Penn State is a Big 10 school and SMU is an ACC school, so Penn State comes from a better conference. However, SMU had an 8-0 record in their conference for the regular and finished runner-up in the ACC championship. So that leaves us with the question, is a team that struggled in a harder conference better than a team that flourished in an easier conference? We’ll find out on December 21st.
Other than these teams’ records, we need to consider what doesn’t show up on the stat sheet. The teams from up North have very different weather conditions than those that are in the South. While the SEC schools and other schools in the South have played in chilly weather, Big 10 schools and other northern schools routinely play in snow and freezing weather. So when it comes down to the southern schools playing the northern schools, the northern schools have the upper hand if they have to play in the snow or the cold. So, in the SMU and Penn State game, Penn State has an advantage because SMU’s Texas weather will not have them ready for Penn State’s cold weather.
Now that you know all about this year’s college football playoffs,
