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Oklahoma's in, but here's how rest of playoff field will shake out
The ending of Saturday night’s Notre Dame-Stanford game could not have been more dramatic. But the Cardinal’s last-second victory coupled with Oklahoma’s rout of Oklahoma State could produce a fairly anticlimactic College Football Playoff field.
With just a handful of Championship Saturday games left to play, the race could not be more clean.
Current No. 3 Oklahoma, now officially an 11-1 Big 12 champion, is in. The only question left is whether the Sooners play their semifinal game in Dallas or Miami.
The winner of next week’s Big Ten championship game between No. 4 Iowa (12-0) and No. 5 Michigan State (11-1) is in. There’s half your field.
No. 2 Alabama (11-1) is in if it wins next week’s SEC championship game against offensive horror show Florida (10-2). Unless Derrick Henry misses the bus to Atlanta, the Tide are in.
And if No. 1 Clemson (12-0) beats No. 14 North Carolina (11-1) at the ACC title game in Charlotte — there’s your field.
The latter, of course, is hardly a given. So those of you who perennially root for chaos, or want an eight-team playoff yesterday — better root for the Tar Heels. Because the committee’s given no indication it would lift Larry Fedora’s team into the final four.
All of this would have been far more controversial if not for 10-2 Stanford’s 45-yard field goal with no time remaining to dash No. 6 Notre Dame’s last remaining playoff hopes. Had the 11-1 Irish prevailed, we’d be having a much different conversation today.
Notre Dame fans would be endlessly reminding us that Oklahoma lost to 4-7 Texas. Sooners fans would be endlessly reminding us that their team just beat three straight top-20 foes. We’d go round and round up until Tuesday night’s show, and then whoever the committee ranked lower (most likely Notre Dame) would just up its lobbying that much more.
As it is, Oklahoma is already the first team to punch its ticket. So much for the Big 12 needing a championship game.
But what happens if North Carolina wins this week? Even more intriguing, what if the Tar Heels — completely dismissed to this point — come out and blow the No. 1 team off the field?
It would not be as simple as “UNC takes Clemson’s place.” Not with that loss to 3-9 South Carolina, those two FCS opponents on the schedule and zero Top-25 wins to date.
Suddenly No. 8 Ohio State (11-1), who most of us penned obits for just a week ago, jumps back into the equation. Ditto No. 9 Stanford if it beats USC in the Pac-12 championship game.
Oh, and what if Florida beats Alabama? Bye bye, SEC, for one thing.
There’s plenty to be interested in next Saturday. In the meantime, Tuesday’s rankings show will be the least suspenseful to date.
Stewart Mandel is a senior college sports columnist for FOXSports.com. He covered college football and basketball for 15 years at Sports Illustrated. You can follow him on Twitter @slmandel and Facebook. Send emails and Mailbag questions to Stewart.Mandel@fox.com.
