College Football Rankings 2015: Week 14 NCAA Playoff Championship Predictions
The College Football Playoff field may still be subject to change, but little remains up in the air at this point in the season.
Half the spots are essentially filled, with Oklahoma and Michigan State/Iowa all but locks for the playoff. Alabama and Clemson will get there, too, with wins in their conference championship games. It came as little surprise to see those five teams occupy the top of the selection committee's Week 14 CFP rankings.
Assuming the Crimson Tide and Tigers both get the job done this Saturday, little separates those schools destined for the semifinals.
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
Playoff Predictions
| National Semifinals | |||
| Dec. 31, 2015 | Orange Bowl | No. 1 Clemson vs. No. 4 Michigan State | CLEM, 27-20 |
| Dec. 31, 2015 | Cotton Bowl | No. 2 Alabama vs. No. 3 Oklahoma | OKLA, 30-24 |
| National Championship | |||
| Jan. 12, 2016 | CFP National Championship | No. 1 Clemson vs. No. 3 Oklahoma | OKLA, 35-17 |
Whether Iowa or Michigan State makes the playoff, both teams are in the same boat; the Hawkeyes and Spartans are very good but not quite good enough to capture a national title. Neither has one facet of the game in which it truly excels:
| Record | 12-0 | 11-0 |
| Strength of Schedule | 62nd | 53rd |
| Total Offense | 404.3 YPG (63rd) | 399.4 YPG (68th) |
| Passing Offense | 200.6 YPG (92nd) | 239.8 YPG (48th) |
| Rushing Offense | 159.6 YPG (80th) | 203.7 YPG (32nd) |
| S&P+ Rating (Offense) | 32.5 (47th | 36.4 (26th) |
| Total Defense | 331.7 YPG (21st) | 349.2 YPG (27th) |
| Pass Defense | 221.7 YPG (63rd) | 231.0 YPG (T75th) |
| Rush Defense | 110.0 YPG (6th) | 118.2 YPG (16th) |
Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz summed up the secret to the Hawkeyes' success this year.
"It's not like there’s anything magical going on here," he said of his team, per Sports Illustrated's Andy Staples. "It's just us doing a little bit better job in those areas that are critical to victory."
Living on the margins can work for a while but tends to be unsustainable. The Hawkeyes can only out-execute teams for so long before the house of cards comes tumbling down.
The question for Michigan State is which defense is going to show up to the game: the one that allowed 255 yards to Imani Cross and Markell Jones or the one that held Ezekiel Elliott and Royce Freeman to 2.8 and 3.8 yards a carry, respectively?
Should the Spartans find themselves matched up with Alabama or Clemson, their inconsistent run defense could be their undoing.
Simply put, the Crimson Tide have the best running back in the country. Only twice has Derrick Henry run for fewer than 90 yards this year, mostly because the team wasn't in need of his services for a full game, as it put away Charleston Southern and Louisiana Monroe in short order.
This year's Alabama team is a lot like the one that won the national championship in 2012, with the exception being AJ McCarron was a much better quarterback than Jake Coker. Henry is playing the role of Eddie Lacy, while the defense is again one of the best in the country.
The fact that the Tide don't have a consistent passing attack gives you slight pause with regard to their national title chances.
Ole Miss and Arkansas each intercepted Coker twice earlier in the year. The Rebels upset Alabama, while the Razorbacks had Alabama on the ropes until the fourth quarter rolled around.
Keeping Henry in check on the ground—five yards a carry or less—and forcing Coker to win the game is the formula to eliminate the Crimson Tide.
Clemson could be the team to make that happen. Nobody in the country is more complete on both sides of the ball than the Tigers.
That's not to say they're a perfect team.
To a certain extent, you have to acknowledge Clemson's record against ranked opponents under coach Dabo Swinney:
| 2008 | No. 22 Florida State | L, 27-41 |
| 2009 | No. 15 Georgia Tech | L, 27-30 |
| 2009 | No. 15 TCU | L, 10-14 |
| 2009 | No. 10 Miami | W, 40-37(OT) |
| 2009 | No. 10 Georgia Tech | L, 34-39 |
| 2010 | No. 16 Auburn | L, 24-27(OT) |
| 2010 | No. 16 Miami | L, 21-30 |
| 2010 | No. 25 NC State | W, 14-13 |
| 2010 | No. 18 South Carolina | L, 7-29 |
| 2011 | No. 21 Auburn | W, 38-24 |
| 2011 | No. 11 Florida State | W, 35-30 |
| 2011 | No. 11 Virginia Tech | W, 23-3 |
| 2011 | No. 12 South Carolina | L, 13-34 |
| 2011 | No. 11 Virginia Tech | W, 38-10 |
| 2011 | No. 23 West Virginia | L, 33-70 |
| 2012 | No. 4 Florida State | L, 37-49 |
| 2012 | No. 12 South Carolina | L, 17-27 |
| 2012 | No. 8 LSU | W, 25-24 |
| 2013 | No. 5 Georgia | W, 38-35 |
| 2013 | No. 5 Florida State | L, 14-51 |
| 2013 | No. 10 South Carolina | L, 17-31 |
| 2013 | No. 7 Ohio State | W, 40-35 |
| 2014 | No. 12 Georgia | L, 21-45 |
| 2014 | No. 1 Florida State | L, 17-23(OT) |
| 2014 | No. 22 Georgia Tech | L, 6-28 |
| 2015 | No. 6 Notre Dame | W, 24-22 |
| 2015 | No. 15 Florida State | W, 23-13 |
Swinney famously ranted against the word "Clemsoning," but it became a part of the college football lexicon for a reason. The Tigers have consistently raised fans' expectations only to let them down later in the season, especially against weaker opponents:
To a certain extent, Ohio State dealt with a similar criticism going into last year's playoff. The Buckeyes beat Arkansas 31-26 in the 2011 Sugar Bowl, but most remembered their back-to-back BCS National Championship defeats to LSU and Florida by a combined score of 79-38.
Until Ohio State toppled Alabama in the semifinals, skeptics questioned whether a Big Ten power could truly match up with the cream of the crop in the SEC.
If you're looking for a more practical reason to worry about Clemson's chances, the Tigers have turned the ball over 24 times, which ties for 105th in the country.
Clemson should be able to get past Michigan State in the semifinals if the two teams meet, but the Tigers would have their hands full with Oklahoma or Alabama.
Speaking of the Sooners, they're the most in-form team in the country.
Ohio State showed last year that timing can be everything. The Buckeyes peaked during their Big Ten championship shutout of Wisconsin and never looked back.
The defeat to Texas on Oct. 10 was a turning point for Oklahoma. In the next seven games, Bob Stoops' team won by an average margin of 32.6 points—a stretch that included victories over Baylor, TCU and Oklahoma State.
"I think a lot of people were like, 'OK, how do they respond?'" said offensive coordinator Lincoln Riley, per ESPN's Chris Low. "But there's a fight in this team, the kind of edge that coach Stoops likes, that was evident from the day I walked in the door. Nobody wanted to go down that same road as a year ago."
Baker Mayfield deserves a lot of credit for Oklahoma's improvement on offense, but the emergence of Joe Mixon and re-emergence of Samaje Perine have really transformed the Sooners on that side of the ball. They've combined to average 216.6 yards a game since the Texas defeat.
The Sooners have been just as good defensively. They boast the 13th-best defense in the country, according to Football Outsiders' S&P+ rating, and they've also forced the 11th-most turnovers (26).
ESPN Stats & Info added how the advanced metrics are in love with the Big 12 champions:
SB Nation's Bill Connelly explained in depth why Alabama and Clemson would both present matchup problems for Oklahoma. The Crimson Tide and Tigers defend the run and pass very well, while their respective ground games could systematically wear down the Sooners at the line of scrimmage.
Still, Oklahoma has passed every major hurdle in the second half of the year and done so in convincing fashion, and it should continue that run in the playoff.
National Championship Prediction: Oklahoma Sooners
Note: Stats are courtesy of NCAA.com.
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
