What You Need to Know About the College Football Postseason

Y’all know how much I love college football, right?  Well, this is for those of you who don’t necessarily have a borderline obsession with it, but you really want to know what the heck all those people like me are talking about when you hear words like “playoff” and “post-season”.  I have a few friends who stare at me blankly when I start talking about football, and I’ve helped them, so I figured…why not help y’all too? 

Here’s what you need to know about the post season:

• There are a LOT of Bowl Games.  To become bowl elligible, a team has to win at least 6 of their regular season games.  The College Football Playoff committee is trying to bring back the importance and excitement of football on New Years by having what is now being called “The New Years Six” Bowls, the 6 biggest and best bowl games, played either New Years Eve or New Years Day.  Every year, two of these bowls will rotate as the playoff games.  These bowls are: The Sugar Bowl, The Rose Bowl, The Orange Bowl, The Fiesta Bowl, The Peach Bowl, and the Cotton Bowl.  This year, the Sugar Bowl and the Rose Bowl are hosting the final four teams in the college football playoff.
• Speaking of the College Football Playoff: the four teams participating in the first ever college football playoff are 1. Alabama, 2. Oregon, 3. Florida State, and 4. Ohio State.  Alabama, Oregon, and Florida State were all pretty much guaranteed spots, but Ohio State, Baylor, and TCU were all neck and neck for that 4th spot.  The College Football committee says it ultimately voted Ohio State into that spot after a convincing B1G (That’s Big Ten) championship over Wisconsin with their third string quarterback.  The Big XII doesn’t have a conference championship, so Baylor and TCU shared it with identical records.  In the head to head, Baylor beat TCU (in a very close game at home), but their strength of schedule was one of the weakest in College Football.  In other words, the committee voted Ohio State in that 4th spot because it was easier than trying to work out the equation of whether Baylor or TCU was truly the better team…and because the Big XII doesn’t have a championship game.
• The Rose Bowl: Oregon (2) vs. Florida State (3) in Pasadena, CA.  This year’s Heisman winner, Marcus Mariota of Oregon vs. last year’s Heisman winner, Jameis Winston of Florida State.  Florida State is (somehow) still undefeated in it’s past 29 games.  They’ve played some close ones this year against a lot of teams that a team in a national championship playoff game shouldn’t have played that closely, but somehow they’ve managed to pull out the Ws in all of them (which I guess counts for something).  Oregon lost only 1 game to Arizona this year, and then came back and convincingly destroyed them in the Pac 12 Championship game.  Most of the country will likely be rooting for The Ducks in this matchup, but Jameis Winston has yet to lose in a game he starts. 
• The Sugar Bowl: Alabama (1) vs. Ohio State (4) in New Orleans, LA.  Alabama is still heavily favored to win the national championship (again), but this will be an interesting matchup.  Bama’s head coach, Nick Saban, and Ohio State’s head coach, Urban Meyer, have met in a couple (SEC) championship games…back when Meyer was coaching football golden boy Tim Tebow at Florida.  In the history of Saban vs. Meyer, Saban has the edge at 2:1.  Ohio State, the championship team from a non-dominant B1G this year would love to take down the most dominant team from the nation’s most difficult division in the SEC West.  (All 7 teams in the SEC West are bowl elligible for the first time in history.)  Alabama is widely heralded as being the nation’s most complete and best team as well. 
• The National Championship: The winners of these two games will meet in Arlington on January 11th to crown the first National Champion of the Playoff Era.  The SEC is hoping to reclaim victory after losing the last national title of the BCS Era to the ACC last year.  The ACC is (probably) hoping that Florida State stays undefeated.  The Pac 12 and the B1G would love to bring some glory and spotlight back to both of their conferences this year.  Whoever we see in this game, it’s sure to be a historic game.  Best of luck to all teams.

If you like this post, let us know…we love talking sports, but we also love bringing the passion of sports to others who maybe aren’t quite as into it as we are but don’t want to be lost when all their friends start talking about it.  We are working on more sports stuff (with a new website and everything), so let us know what you want to know about…we’ll do our best to help you out.  And to quote Rachel from FRIENDS…”Honey…might I suggest a little more ESPN and a little less E!.  Seriously, ESPN, just have it on in the background.”