Sports Oklahoma Sooners head coach Lincoln Riley (right) celebrates with the Big 12 Conference championship trophy while conference commissioner Bob Bowlsby (left) looks on after the NCAA Big 12 Conference football championship between the Oklahoma Sooners and Texas Longhorns, Saturday, Dec. ... more > Print By
Faced with a tricky choice, the College Football Playoff selection committee played it safe and fell back on some simple criteria: One loss is better than two. Winning a conference championship is better than not. Go with the team that avoided getting blown out.
Oklahoma is in the playoff over Georgia and Ohio State, moving into the fourth and final spot Sunday after the Sooners avenged their only loss by winning the Big 12 championship against Texas.
“I feel like we have a team worthy of it, a team that can go make a run,” Sooners coach Lincoln Riley said on ESPN.
The Sooners (12-1) will face No. 1 Alabama (13-0) in the Orange Bowl on Dec. 29 in a matchup of Heisman Trophy front-runner quarterbacks — Kyler Murray of Oklahoma and the Tide’s Tua Tagovailoa, who sprained his ankle in the Southeastern Conference championship game Saturday and is expected to be laid up for two weeks.
No. 2 Clemson (13-0) plays No. 3 Notre Dame (12-0) in the Cotton Bowl on the same day. The winners meet in the championship game on Jan. 7 in Santa Clara, California.
The rest of the New Year’s Six bowl matchups are UCF vs. LSU in the Fiesta Bowl; Florida vs. Michigan in the Peach Bowl; Ohio State vs. Washington in the Rose Bowl; and Texas vs. Georgia in the Sugar Bowl.
Georgia (11-2) dropped a spot to fifth and Ohio State (12-1) remained sixth in the selection committee’s final top 25. The Bulldogs lost to Alabama in the SEC championship game Saturday and the Buckeyes won the Big Ten against Northwestern. The Sooners paid back a three-point loss to Texas in a Red River Rivalry rematch.
The 13-member selection committee, given the intentionally vague task of picking the four best teams in college football, was watching games and deliberating at a hotel in Grapevine, Texas, until 1:30 a.m. CT Sunday, committee chairman Rob Mullens said. The committee finished its top four at 10:30 a.m. CT.
Alabama, Clemson and Notre Dame separated from the pack by going undefeated.
The tough call was at No. 4. Mullens said the committee determined none of Oklahoma, Georgia and Ohio State was unequivocally best and that brought the selection protocol into play.
The protocol says conference championships, head-to-head results, strength of schedule and comparative outcomes are used as virtual tiebreakers when teams are close. No factor is weighted more than another.
“This is an art, not a science,” said Mullens, who is the athletic director at Oregon.
Oklahoma’s conference championship gave it the edge over Georgia. The Bulldogs’ strength of schedule, with losses to ranked teams, gave Georgia the edge over Ohio State, Mullens said.
Virginia to play in Belk Bowl
Virginia (7-5) will make its first consecutive bowl appearance since 2004-05 when it faces South Carolina (7-5) in the Belk Bowl on Dec. 29 at noon in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Thanks to quarterback Bryce Perkins’ 2,472 yards and 22 passing touchdowns, the Cavaliers were in the thick of the ACC Central race until late season losses. They had conference victories over Miami, Louisville and Duke. The Cavaliers averaged 170.3 yards per game on the ground this season.
Cavaliers defensive back Bryce Hall leads the nation with 20 pass breakups. South Carolina is led by quarterback Jake Bentley, who has 2,953 yards passing, and 27 touchdowns with 12 interceptions.
Wide receiver Deebo Samuel has 11 of the Gamecocks’ 32 receiving touchdowns.
South Carolina beat Virginia 31-7 on Sept. 6, 2003, the last time the two schools met.
The Cavaliers have not played at the Belk Bowl since 2003, when it was the Continental Tire Bowl. They’ve lost three straight bowl games, including a 49-7 loss to Navy in last year’s Military Bowl.
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