What to Know
- The College Football Playoff pairings have been announced by the selection committee
- Top-ranked Alabama will play Washington. Clemson will play Ohio State.
- Popular Big10 schools Penn State and Michigan left out of the top 4.
Commence debate — the pairings are in, and Penn State and Michigan are out.
Alabama is the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff and will meet No. 4 Washington in a semifinal game at the Peach Bowl on Dec. 31.
The other semifinal is No. 2 Clemson against No. 3 Ohio State at the Fiesta Bowl, also Dec. 31.
Alabama is the only team to be in all three editions of the CFP so far. Ohio State and Clemson are in for the second time, and Washington is a first-timer in the four-team field.
Penn State finished No. 5 and is headed to the Rose Bowl. Michigan was No. 6, likely now bound for the Orange Bowl.
Alabama is going to chase more than a national championship in the College Football Playoff. The Crimson Tide may do something no team has managed to do since the 19th century.
Sports
The 15-win watch is back.
No NCAA team has won 15 games in a season. But it has happened in college football before the NCAA was formed in the 1930s — Yale won 15 games in 1889 and a record 16 games in 1894. The other school listed in the NCAA record book as winning 15 games in a season was Penn, in 1892 and 1897.
Alabama (13-0) would get that elusive 15th win by successfully defending its national championship.
Clemson entered last year's playoff bidding for 15-0, and had a chance to finish with that record — but lost the title game to the Crimson Tide.
Tide coach Nick Saban has only finished undefeated once in his storied coaching career. That was in 2009 when Alabama went 14-0 and won the first of his four national titles at the school.
