INDIANAPOLIS – The first big win in college football’s postseason goes to Boise State. The Broncos captured the Mountain West Conference title Friday night and earned their spot in the sport’s first 12-team playoff.
The losers? Well, there was UNLV, which fell 21-7 to Heisman hopeful Ashton Jeanty and the Broncos in the conference title game. But more than that, it was the Big 12, which saw one of its paths to a first-round bye in those playoffs blocked off by Jeanty and Co.
Boise State will hang on to or improve on its No. 10 ranking in the final College Football Playoff rankings that come out Sunday. That would almost certainly make the Broncos no worse than the fourth-best conference titlist and in line for a first-round bye.
The Big 12 title game on Saturday pits No. 15 Arizona State against No. 16 Iowa State.
The winner is in the playoff. But the only realistic route left for either team to earn a bye ( and the extra $4 million that comes with it ) would be to combine that win — preferably a convincing one — with a loss by the Atlantic Coast Conference leader, No. 8 SMU, which plays No. 17 Clemson.
The Big 12 commissioner and Iowa State’s athletic director are among those already crying foul. By the time the title games are over (Saturday) and the brackets are revealed (Sunday), they won’t be the only ones.
The rest of the drama involves Alabama, SMU and Miami (sort of)
Barring something completely unexpected, it will take either a loss by SMU, a change of heart from the selection committee or both to knock Alabama out of the bracket. If the Tide make it, the Southeastern Conference will have four teams in the playoff.
Since the selection committee placed the Crimson Tide at No. 11 last week, one spot ahead of Miami, it looks very much like the Tide will stay ahead of the Hurricanes of the Atlantic Coast Conference. The way last week’s ranking shook out, that meant Alabama was in and Miami was out.
Not surprisingly, ACC commissioner Jim Phillips, who saw undefeated Florida State passed over by Alabama in last year’s four-team bracket, is not happy.
“Decisions by the committee should be based on facts, not on perception,” said Phillips, whose talking points include Miami’s two losses compared with three for Alabama. “Not on the league that you come from, not in the geography of where you sit, but on your resume: What have you done? … Who did you lose to and who did you beat?”
Locks and near locks
Boise State’s bid is a done deal.
Oregon, top-ranked and the only undefeated team in the country, is in, too. But Saturday’s game against No. 3 Penn State is for the Big Ten title and a first-round bye.
If Penn State prevails, then there’s an argument that the Nittany Lions could end up with that top seed.
In the SEC, it’s No. 2 Texas vs. No. 5 Georgia. Sadly, Bevo will not be in the building. The winner gets a bye and a championship. The loser should still be in, but if that loser is Georgia, the Dawgs could be on the road for the first round.
Depending on how the brackets shape up, these teams could face each other three times this season.
Home field dust-up
A handful of teams aren’t playing this weekend and don’t have much to worry about. No. 4 Notre Dame should get a home game. (Maybe the Irish, an independent, should get a bye, too, but that’s a topic for another day.)
No. 9 Indiana, one of four Big Ten teams projected to make the playoff, will probably be on the road.
In between, there is the matter of No. 6 Ohio State and No. 7 Tennessee. Last week’s projected bracket paired the 10-2 teams in a first-round game to be played at the Horseshoe in Columbus, Ohio.
But their rankings were flip-flopped from the way voters for the AP Top 25 placed them, and the difference matters a lot. Like Ohio Stadium, Neyland Stadium in Knoxville also seats 100,000-plus and provides one of the best home-field advantages in the game.
All of which led Vols athletic director Danny White to weigh in, asking for a return to computer-based rankings that were used more than a decade ago in a previous iteration of the postseason (the Bowl Championship Series, or BCS).
“I will criticize the fact that we don’t have a more objective, computer-based rankings system that just makes it very clear,” White said in an interview with UT’s radio personalities. “Everyone understands what the parameters are and it is what it is. I think it would leave a lot less consternation on the back end that we’re seeing all across the country right now.”
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AP Sports Writer Aaron Beard contributed to this report.
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