With the College Football Playoff semifinals in the books, it’s time for the main event.
Pac-12 champion Oregon (13-1) and Big Ten champion Ohio State (13-1) will meet in Arlington, Texas, on Jan. 12 in the first College Football Playoff championship game. OSU is looking for its first national title since 2002, while Oregon is seeking its first ever.
The Ducks opened Friday as a seven-point favorite over the Buckeyes, who don’t have a problem with the underdog role. They torched the Alabama defense in the Sugar Bowl Thursday for more than 500 yards in a 42-35 win even though the mighty Crimson Tide was favored by eight.
Oregon’s crazy-fast offense is even more dangerous. The Ducks rolled up more than 600 yards in their 52-20 rout of Florida State. Oregon became the first team to reach 50 points in the 101-year history of the Rose Bowl.
The Ducks’ Marcus Mariota-led offense is built on speed — in terms of tempo and actually on-field talent. Oregon scored six straight times it touched the ball in the second half against FSU, with five of the touchdowns covering at least 21 yards.
The CFP semifinals matched two teams running high-tempo, spread-based offenses against two pro-style attacks. The spread offenses won both, putting up 87 combined points and more than 1,100 yards in the process.
I guess I am trying to say up-tempo, high-scoring offenses rule the day in college football and the championship game should be fun to watch.
Both teams rank in the top 5 nationally in points per game, with Ohio State averaging 45 (fifth) and Oregon just more than 47 (third). The Buckeyes have scored at least 31 points all but once this season, while the Ducks have dipped below the 38 mark just one time.
If you’re an old-school fan of strong defense, don’t tune in for this one. There will be little defense on display in the championship game.
The first year of the four-team CFP system looks like a huge success.
Many thought TCU and Baylor might have been snubbed for the final spot when the committee jumped them in the final rankings with Ohio State. But the Buckeyes washed away any doubts I had with the way it played against Alabama.
If the BCS Championship system were still intact, neither Oregon nor OSU would be playing for a national title.
Alabama and Florida State were Nos. 1 and 2 in the final regular-season Associated Press and USA Today coaches’ polls. There’s a good chance the BCS would have seen it the same way.
But in this new era of college football, Alabama is done after the Buckeyes’ win marked an end to the SEC’s streak of title dominance. You have to look back a decade, to the 2005-06 season, to find the last time an SEC team was not involved in the national championship game.
“Obviously, we’re really thankful for the playoff system,” said OSU’s Ezekiel Elliott, who ran for 230 yards, a Sugar Bowl record. “They gave us a chance to go out there and show that we’re one of the better teams in the nation and we deserve to be in the national championship. So I think the playoff system definitely helped.”
Maybe, after Ohio State and Oregon won convincingly, college football’s landscape changed dramatically in the first year of the playoff for the SEC, which saw its teams win seven BCS championships in a row from 2006 to 2012, and won’t win it all for the second season in a row.
It’s good to finally settle the national championship on the field even though many will be left clammering for an eight-team playoff in the future.
I think its just right for now, and we’ll find out who the best team is in eight days.
