College Football Rankings 2014: Full Top 25, Playoff Predictions and More
One more weekend of college football games, and the arguments, hypotheticals and conversations about game control and style points will be in the rearview mirror.
There are a number of high-stakes conference championship clashes on the schedule for Friday and Saturday, and the outcomes will undoubtedly shape the College Football Playoff field. Can Alabama hold serve in the SEC title game? Can Florida State hang on for dear life one more time? Can Ohio State win with its third-string quarterback?
Read on for a final look at the Top 25 polls before the games, some playoff projections and a brief preview for the conference championship games with playoff implications.
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Top 25 Polls
Playoff Projections
Sugar Bowl: No. 1 Alabama vs. No. 4 Ohio State
Rose Bowl: No. 2 Oregon vs. No. 3 Florida State
Championship Bowl (in Arlington, Texas): TBD (semifinal winners)
Championship Weekend
Oregon will square off with Arizona in the Pac-12 Championship to start everything off Friday night. That may not be the best news for the Ducks, as ESPN Stats & Info noted:
Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota has performed like a football-playing robot this season and set a conference record with 48 total touchdowns. He has only lost as a starter at Oregon four times, but two of them just so happened to come against Arizona.
The Wildcats picked him off three times and forced three different fumbles in matchups the last three seasons. Still, Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez was more than complimentary toward the Ducks and Mariota, according to The Associated Press, via ESPN.com:
"If you look back at his stats, he got a lot of yards and big plays, but we got a couple turnovers. Some of it was great individual effort and some of it was a little bit of luck. If you go back to this game or even the game last season, he still got his yards, and he is still going to get his yards and make his plays.
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Elsewhere, Florida State and Georgia Tech face off in the ACC Championship.
If things go according to script, the Seminoles will fall behind early and then make a dramatic comeback to win at the end. They have trailed in the first half in nine separate games and could have lost multiple games if a few plays went a different way. Even Jameis Winston has thrown 11 interceptions in his last six games heading into Saturday’s contest.
Falling behind early could be a problem against the Yellow Jackets and the nation’s No. 4 rushing attack. Justin Thomas, Zach Laskey and Synjyn Days keep the chains and clock moving with a ball-control offense predicated on picking up chunks of yards on the ground.
Georgia Tech has won five games in a row as a result and should at least challenge Florida State.
On paper, Alabama and Missouri is probably the least intriguing of the matchups. The Crimson Tide are an absolute machine heading into the SEC Championship with Amari Cooper running circles around opposing secondaries and T.J. Yeldon and Derrick Henry powering their way through the line.
Alabama is also fifth in the country in scoring defense, although it struggled against Auburn in the Iron Bowl.
Missouri lost to Indiana and was destroyed by Georgia. The Tigers also missed Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Ole Miss and Mississippi State on schedule and had about as weak of a slate as possible in the SEC.
The one thing going for Missouri is the fact that it had an SEC-best 40 sacks this season, but Alabama allowed an SEC-low 11 sacks. The Crimson Tide should be able to neutralize the Tigers’ greatest strength and eventually pull away in this one.
In terms of pure storylines, the most intriguing matchup is in the Big Ten Championship. Ohio State is forced to turn to its third-string quarterback in Cardale Jones for the game against the Wisconsin Badgers after J.T. Barrett was lost for the season to an ankle injury in the win over Michigan.
That is certainly not the ideal scenario with the conference crown and a potential spot in the College Football Playoff on the line, but it is far from the only problem the Buckeyes are facing. Melvin Gordon had 2,260 rushing yards and 29 total touchdowns on the season and topped 100 rushing yards in 11 of 12 games.
He is the nation’s best player this side of Mariota and will be a real problem for Ohio State’s front seven.
If the Buckeyes are going to win, they will have to lean on Ezekiel Elliott and the nation’s 12th-ranked rushing attack and skill players like Jalin Marshall, Devin Smith and Michael Thomas.
In these projections, Ohio State does just that and makes a loud statement to the nation and the selection committee with a win over a Top 13 team without its quarterback. The other playmakers will step up, and the designation as the lone Big Ten champion will carry enough weight that the scarlet and gray will get in over the co-champs from the Big 12.
How does a playoff with Alabama, Oregon, Florida State and Ohio State sound?
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