College Football Playoff Matchups We're Dying to See
The College Football Playoff picture is coming into shape.
The selection committee released its first rankings on Tuesday night, putting a long-overdue halt to the projections and the post-projection analysis. We finally know the order by which the playoff contenders compare.
With this information, the blurry image of the four-team playoff that we've harbored for so long is glossing itself with details. The picture is more illegible than not, but we can start to envision certain players and coaches and teams in Pasadena and New Orleans.
The list that follows does not contain the matchups that appear most likely. They're the matchups we got most excited about. The reasons for each case differed, ranging from series history to coaching matchup to style of play, but they all made us giddy to think about.
Sound off below to let us know what you would add.
Bonus: Arizona vs. Ohio State/Michigan State
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The only thing Michigan fans hate more than watching Michigan State win is watching Ohio State win. The only thing Michigan fans hate more than watching Ohio State win is watching Rich Rodriguez win.
Well, Michigan fans. Welcome to your worst nightmare.
If Arizona and either Michigan State or Ohio State run the table, there's a chance they could meet in the playoff. Both would be 12-1 conference champions, although the Buckeyes' bad loss at home to Virginia Tech would make for an interesting argument.
Enough things have gone wrong for Michigan fans this season that we'll leave this as a bonus. Putting it on the proper list would feel like piling on. Still, when your team stabs a salad fork (or whatever it was they stabbed) into another team's field as an ill-fated means for intimidation, you can't really say you don't deserve that.
5. Kansas State vs. Alabama
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Bill Snyder and Nick Saban could not be less alike, unless you count the fact that they are two of the five best coaches in the country.
Snyder built Kansas State from nothing, and even after decades of success, he still can't attract even middle-tier talent to come play for him, cobbling his roster together with JUCO players and walk-ons. Saban coaches at Alabama, has all the resources one could ask for and just landed the top recruiting class in the country for the fourth consecutive year, per the 247Sports team rankings.
In all their time spent coaching, Snyder and Saban have never played one another. The contrast between them was whispered about two seasons ago, when Kansas State started 10-0 and rose to No. 1 in the BCS rankings, but the Wildcats lost to Baylor and dropped out of the national title discussion.
Here's what Bill Reiter of Fox Sports Kansas City wrote earlier in the season, before Kansas State lost that game:
"In Snyder and Saban—the faithful versus the wanderer, the good guy versus the villain, the quiet grandpa versus the too-slick firebrand—we have two of the greatest coaching minds ever to grace the game, two distinctly different avenues to excellence and two competitors fighting to be the best of their time.
Or perhaps any time.
"
Sound hyperbolic? It's not.
"He's not the coach of the year, he's not the coach of the decade, he's the coach of the century!", former Oklahoma head coach Barry Switzer once said of Snyder, per Mark Janssen (via ESPN.com).
And this would be one of the century's top coaching matchups.
4. Florida State vs. Notre Dame
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One of two in-season rematches on this list—and the only one of a game that's already happened—Notre Dame vs. Florida State would be a perfect national semifinal given how their first meeting ended.
The Irish appeared to have scored the game-winning touchdown on 4th-and-goal with 13 seconds remaining, but the play was discounted for offensive pass interference. The week that followed was a cesspool of arguments in each direction, shouting matches over whether the refs made the right call. The NCAA insists that they did. Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly insists that they didn't.
(Every impartial viewer with eyes agreed with the NCAA.)
At any rate, the rematch would be billed as Notre Dame's revenge for getting "jobbed" in Tallahassee. But that's not why we want to see them play it. In many ways, this game was included in spite of that.
Instead, it would be Notre Dame's much-earned second chance after coming so close in Tallahassee. If that is what this game looked like on a partisan field, imagine would it would look like on a neutral one.
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
3. TCU vs. Oregon
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Points.
That about sums up everything you need to know.
TCU leads the country with 50.4 points scored per game, and Oregon ranks fifth with 45.5. TCU ranks second with 573 yards of offense per game, and Oregon ranks eighth with 535. Oregon ranks second with 57 plays of 20-plus yards, and TCU ranks fourth with 52.
Conversely, Oregon ranks No. 108 with 462 yards of offense allowed per game and No. 122 with 142 plays of 10-plus yards allowed. TCU ranks higher on aggregate but allowed Baylor to run up 782 yards of offense and 61 points in a three-point loss in Waco.
As a championship game, watching these two attempt to outscore each other might feel a little hollow. But as a playoff game, it would be the perfect way to earn a spot in the finals. Remember that NFC Wild Card Game a few years back where the Kurt Warner-led Arizona Cardinals beat the Aaron Rodgers-led Green Bay Packers, 51-45.
Trevone Boykin and Marcus Mariota could match that.
(And it might only take them three quarters.)
2. Florida State vs. Auburn
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There would be an ergonomic pleasure to starting the CFP era with a rematch of the final BCS title game: Florida State vs. Auburn.
Key players such as Tre Mason, Dee Ford, Greg Robinson, Kelvin Benjamin, Devonta Freeman and Timmy Jernigan have all departed from the cast of last year's game, but enough pieces have returned to each side that FSU and Auburn have been able to navigate the first nine weeks of the season and set themselves up for playoff runs.
Chiefly, quarterbacks Jameis Winston and Nick Marshall would get a second go at one another after each played well—but neither played immaculate—in last year's edition of the game. Winston came up big when it mattered most, though, leading FSU down the field for the game-winning touchdown with 13 seconds left on the clock.
"We have to be 13 seconds better in everything we do," said Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn before the season, per Bleacher Report's Barrett Sallee. He has not forgotten that evening in Pasadena.
He would love to get a second go at the 'Noles.
1. Ole Miss vs. Mississippi State
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If the season ended today, No. 1 Mississippi State would play No. 4 Ole Miss in the first round of the playoff.
Of course, the season does not end today: It ends in a little over a month, at which point Mississippi State and Ole Miss will actually have played in Oxford. But with the right combination of factors, they could still meet in the playoff despite having played that game.
Specifically, both teams need to run the table until the Egg Bowl, entering at 11-0 and 10-1, respectively. If Ole Miss beats the Bulldogs, it would win the SEC West by virtue of a head-to-head tiebreaker with its in-state rival, advancing to play for the conference title.
There, if it won the conference title, Ole Miss would be an easy inclusion for the playoff. But the same could be said of Mississippi State, which would be 11-1 with a home win over Auburn, road wins over LSU and Alabama and a true road loss against a playoff team.
Which other one-loss team could compete with that?
And to those who ask, "Would we really want to see a another 'Egg Bowl' in the playoff if they just played a month ago?", the answer is a resounding "Yes." Would you not have liked to see another "Iron Bowl" after the way that game ended at Auburn last season?
Exactly.
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
