College Football Playoff Takeaways: Round 1
Photo by John P. Wise from WSYX
Happy Holidays, everyone!
I hope you enjoyed it no matter what you were doing.
It’s been a bit since I wrote, considering the holidays took a lot of time away, but tomorrow begins the quarterfinals of the college football playoff.
Because of that, let’s go over what happened in round 1, and what we have learned.
Notre Dame defeats Indiana 27-17
This game created lots and lots of discourse regarding the playoff, as many used it as a clear cut example of why Indiana didn’t belong.
Those people are not the ones you want to be listening to when it comes to college football.
One, because it’s just a miserable way to consume the sport, and two, because this was a clear cut bad matchup for Indiana.
Indiana likes to shut down the run, and run the ball.
That’s great, but so does Notre Dame.
And they’re a lot better at it.
Make all the Northern Illinois jokes you want, but this Notre Dame team is really good.
The bracket falls favorably for them as well.
May want to watch out…
Penn State defeats SMU 38-10
Week 2, SMU lost to BYU and then made a switch to Kevin Jennings at quarterback.
Jennings was excellent, leading SMU to go undefeated the rest of the way up until a loss in the ACC title game against Clemson.
If SMU was going to make a run in the playoffs, it was going to be because of the great play of Kevin Jennings.
Instead, they got a horrible game from Jennings.
Two pick sixes in the first half, and a terrible red zone interception when the Mustangs were only down 14-0.
This was far from a dominant Penn State performance. They left the door open multiple times.
Kevin Jennings just kept shutting it on their behalf.
Texas defeats Clemson 38-24
The worry about Texas was simply Quinn Ewers.
Quinn Ewers is very talented, but he made too many mistakes that would get Texas into trouble.
Last Saturday, Texas made sure that wasn’t a problem.
They ran the crap out of the ball, and did it extremely well to the tune of 292 rushing yards.
If they continue to run the ball like that, this is a championship caliber team.
Ohio State defeats Tennessee 42-17
I didn’t know who was going to win this game.
My gut told me Ohio State, and that was my prediction, but Tennessee has a good defensive line and Ohio State had some injuries on the offensive line.
Plus, Michigan showed that if they drag Ohio State into a mud fight, they are definitely vulnerable.
And then, Tennessee players came out onto the field shirtless in freezing cold weather.
And I have no data to back this up, and no research to fall back on, but I knew right then.
Every time a team comes out in cold weather wearing no shirts, to show how “not afraid” they are of the cold, they get stomped on.
Add that in with Ohio State remembering they have freaks at wide receiver, and you got an absolute clobbering in favor of the Buckeyes.
And, surprisingly, not loads of discourse after the fact about how Tennessee didn’t deserve to be there.
Strange!
