2015 College Football Playoffs Set with Rankings Switch
Written by Ryan Wright
Twitter: @HogManInLA
College football’s Championship Week wrapped on Saturday crowning conference title winners across the country while setting the second annual college football playoffs final four. Clemson, Alabama, and Michigan State won their way into the playoffs with Oklahoma getting a bid after winning the Big 12 Conference title.
Clemson held onto the No. 1 ranking after beating then- No. 10 North Carolina 45-37. North Carolina took a 9-7 into the second quarter but the Tigers pulled out in front to stay after a Deshaun Watson touchdown pass to Jordan Leggett with seconds to go before halftime. The Tar Heels rallied in the fourth quarter making the game a tighter ending.
Watson did not disappoint his fan base passing for 289 yards with three scores against one pick while running for 131 yards with two more touchdowns.
Alabama’s lockdown defense locked up the No. 2 seed in a decisive 29-15 win over the No. 18 ranked Florida Gators. Florida was limited to 180 yards of total offense getting just 15 yards on the ground.
Crimson Tide quarterback Jake Coker passed for 204 yards with two scores but once again the player of the game on offense for the Tide was running back Derrick Henry. Henry was fed the ball 44 times for 189 yards with one touchdown.
Michigan State was in a slugfest with then- No. 4 Iowa getting a LJ Scott 1-yard touchdown run with 33 seconds left in the game for the 16-13 win over the previously unbeaten Hawkeyes. The Iowa defense played tough limiting MSU’s offense after three Hawkeye turnovers throughout the game.
The win over Iowa was enough to bump the Spartans over idle Oklahoma, last week’s No. 3 seed. The Sooners finished the season 11-1 with wins over No. 23 Tennessee, No. 6 Baylor, No. 18 TCU, and No. 11 Oklahoma State. The overall view of the Big 12 may have been hindered slightly when Baylor lost to Texas 23-17 at home on Saturday.
The one team hoping for an upset among the top four teams was Stanford. The Cardinal systematically broke down their Pac-12 South Division rivals, USC, winning 41-22. The story of the game for Stanford was running back Christian McCaffrey. McCaffrey had 207 yards rushing on 32 carries with a touchdown, four receptions for 105 yards with another score, and 120 kick return yards off five attempts. In the win, McCaffrey set the FBS single-season all-purpose yard mark set by former Oklahoma State running back Barry Sanders in 1988. Sanders posted 3,250 yards in 1988, McCaffrey now has 3,496 on the season. A side note, McCaffrey had two extra games to set the mark.
The semifinals are set with No. Clemson facing No. 4 Oklahoma in the Capital One Orange Bowl on Dec. 31 and No. 2 Alabama squaring off against No. 3 Michigan State in the Goodyear Cotton Bowl, also on Dec. 31.
The playoff selection committee did not have the final rankings for the other 21 Top 25 teams at the time of this post.
Photo credit: AJ Mast; LJ Scott gets winning touchdown against Iowa to secure berth in the college football playoffs.