Cleveland Browns bullet points after a boring loss to the Bengals
December 6, 2015Fired up about the Browns’ disaster – plus Jimmy Haslam and Brian Billick – WFNY Podcast – 2015-12-06
December 6, 2015Unfortunately for Ohio State, Chaos Saturday did not happen, and they were left out of the second College Football Playoffs. With the Buckeyes not making the Big Ten Championship, the Iowa Hawkeyes dropped just one spot to No. 5 with their loss to Michigan State. Ohio State was jumped by Stanford (who won the Pac-12 Championship game over USC), and dropped to No. 7. With the Hawkeyes ranked ahead of the Buckeyes, they will get Stanford in the Rose Bowl and Ohio State will play in the Fiesta Bowl against No. 8 Notre Dame.
Why did Stanford jump Ohio State, you ask? College Football Playoff committee chairman said it was close, but the Buckeyes not making their conference championship was the main reason why they dropped to No. 7.
“Body of work…and conference championship…made that difference for putting Stanford ahead of Ohio State,” Long said. “But again, it was very, very close.”
This will be the sixth meeting between the Buckeyes and Fighting Irish and it will be Ohio State’s seventh trip to the Fiesta Bowl, while Notre Dame will makes its fifth trip to the Arizona desert. The Buckeyes lead the all-time series over Notre Dame, 3-2, with the Buckeyes taking the last three games. The Buckeyes won in 1995 in Columbus, 1996 in South Bend, and 2006 in the Fiesta Bowl when the Buckeyes beat the Irish, 34-20.1
The last time the scarlet and gray played in the Fiesta Bowl was to conclude the 2008 season, when they lost to the Texas Longhorns, 24-21. But Ohio State is 4-2 all-time.
Not to open any bad wounds for Ohio State fans, but the last time head coach Urban Meyer coached in the Fiesta Bowl was in 2007, when his Florida Gators demolished (and embarrassed) the Buckeyes, 41-14, in the BCS National Championship.
So now the 2016 Fiesta Bowl will be one of the most intriguing non-Playoff bowl match-ups. Ohio State and Notre Dame will kickoff at 1 p.m. ET (11 a.m. local time) on ESPN, on New Year’s Day at Arizona Cardinals’ University of Phoenix Stadium.
As for those other games the 2015 version of the Playoffs will feature No. 1 Clemson against No. 4 Oklahoma and No. 2 Alabama against No. 3 Michigan State. No. 5 Iowa will take on No. 6 Stanford in the Rose Bowl.
- Brady Quinn’s sister and her half and half jersey sure remember. [↩]
21 Comments
The ND game Hineygate in ’95 was the craziest one I ever went to.
The CFB is dying to see Oklahoma-Alabama for the title.
Anyone but Alabama!
As an ND fan, I hoped to avoid this match up. I don’t think it will end well for ND.
Not sure I understand 2 teams from the east going west to play at 11am eastern time, especially with a 4 hour gap between the start of the Fiesta Bowl and the Rose Bowl. Why not start later?
The Rose Bowl would have been better, but this is pretty sweet.
There will be four B1G teams playing on New Year’s Day (us, Iowa, Michigan, and Northwestern) and one on Jan. 2 (Penn St.) in addition to the Spartans on New Year’s Eve. That’s pretty sweet too.
Bittersweet. It’s a nice match-up, and I love both teams, but you can’t convince me that the 4 best teams in the country are in the playoffs, which is the whole point. That Sparty game and crap playcalling hurts more and more every day; still, I’m all in on Sparty for these playoffs. Go Big Ten.
My take-away from all of this continues to be that the playoff needs to expand, and the sooner, the better.
Could have moved it to 3 and had games starting at 12, 1, 3, 5, 830 instead we have two games at 1
Rooting hard for NW, and for Penn State, any teams vs SEC (4 of them) for that matter.
Michigan State vs Clemson would be so weirdly good as both teams have a long history of “almost” being good enough to compete for a National Championship.
I am always in favor of getting to beat up on the Irish. Join the B1G already, cowards.
To hell with every B1G team not named Ohio State.
Notre Dame is a foo-foo ACC team now except they reserve the right to not be allowed to win the ACC championship they would have lost anyway (as Clemson beat them).
The four best may not be in the playoffs, but Ohio State being there wouldn’t change that. Not with the way they scuffled though the regular season looking out of sync in all aspects, on-field and off. Not with their embarrassing no-show in the one game on their schedule that meant the most to their playoff prospects. They may still have more potential than any team in the country, but they never lived up to it. Maybe they deserved a Rose Bowl bid, but certainly not a playoff spot.
Don’t disagree at all, but I do think that OSU “might” be the best team in the country. I also think Stanford “might” be the best team in the country. I seriously doubt that Michigan State is, and have major reservations on Oklahoma. I just think it’s funny how this whole playoff thing really has come down to who might be the best conference champs.
In part, I think that’s how it should be, but with a playoff system that awards ALL conference champs, and a couple of at-large entrants. The 4-team playoff system is no less arbitrary than the BCS or the AP poll. (Granted, I was perfectly fine with it LAST year. It seems my hypocrisy knows no bounds.)
To put a finer point on my poorly-worded criticism of the system:
If the 4-team playoff is just supposed to put the 4 best teams in contention for the title, then I really don’t think that they should look at being a conference champ as factor – unless a team’s specific performance in a championship game proves that they are one of the best 4 teams (ala the 2014 Buckeyes).
What about a year where a conference champ is 8-5 or worse (upset from weak division in conf. champ game)?
Also, NCAA didn’t want to end controversy, they wanted to rake in more money. Mission accomplished.
Let that conference champ get destroyed by the #1 seed; but let them play. I still maintain that this is the best approach, and the approach generally observed in every other level of every other team sport.
But, yes, it’s about money. You can’t tell me that there wouldn’t be more money to go around with a 12-team (or more) playoff, though. Ask the NFL about playoff revenues.
Those other bowls still rake in $$$ though and the NCAA doesn’t want them to go away (though eventually they likely will).
I think we’ll see a 6-team w/ 2 byes ala NFL as the next step. Baby steps towards the inevitable MOAR team playoff.
Baby steps are for babies.
Are Battlefrogs related?