We’ve had March Madness. Now there is December Drama.
On Sunday afternoon, there will be a college football bracket: 12 teams in the first year of the expanded College Football Playoff.
After a decade of four schools getting chosen, the sport adopted expansion to give more programs a shot. It created additional interest in the regular season and the feeling that the championship truly is up for grabs.
Shortly after noon, the pairings will be announced. The top four seeds will be given to the highest ranked conference champions instead of the four highest ranked teams, which could create chaos down the road.
The Post prepares you for the festivities:
Who is No. 1?
This is an easy one. Undefeated Oregon entered the Big Ten championship game the heavy favorite and locked up the top spot with a 45-37 victory over third-ranked Penn State.
Landing the No. 1 seed, however, isn’t a huge advantage, aside from receiving a bye.
Oregon will face the No. 8/No. 9 winner, which actually will likely be a tougher quarterfinal opponent than the fifth seed will face if it gets that far, since the four highest seeds are conference champions.
This is something that has to be addressed in the future.
Imagine if the second-place seed in the SEC or Big 12 received a worse seed than the AAC or Atlantic 10 winner in the NCAA Tournament on the hardwood?
Is Alabama in?
The Crimson Tide were thought to be done after that no-show performance at six-win Oklahoma a few weeks ago.
But everything has gone right since. Alabama manhandled Auburn in the Iron Bowl while Miami, Ole Miss and Texas A&M all dropped games that moved Kalen DeBoer’s three-loss team up.
Entering the day, most experts felt Alabama was safe because it was ranked 11th by the committee. Since No. 8 SMU dropped the ACC championship game to No. 17 Clemson, there is a scenario the Mustangs could knock the Crimson Tide out.
SMU has one fewer loss but not nearly the quality of Alabama’s win at home over Georgia, which looks even better now that the Bulldogs won the powerhouse SEC. And the committee has been bumping down teams off of losses by several spots.
It’s hard to see Alabama being left out. Miami, ranked 12th, doesn’t seem like it has a realistic shot, since it really is ranked 13th, as No. 15 Arizona State received the automatic as the Big 12 champion.
What does the opening round look like?
Oregon (Big Ten), Georgia (SEC) and No. 10 Boise State (highest-ranked Group of Five conference champion) get three of the byes.
Then, it comes down to Arizona State or Clemson for the fourth one. We give Arizona State the slight edge because it has one fewer loss.
One-loss Notre Dame receives the top at-large and the fifth seed, drawing Clemson in an intriguing opening-round matchup.
I don’t see the committee punishing Texas too much for its conference championship game loss.
Texas drops down to No. 6, where it will face No. 11 Alabama. While Penn State played well against Oregon, it lost head-to-head to Ohio State, giving the Buckeyes the advantage.
Ohio State is the seventh seed as a result and meets No. 10 Indiana, while Penn State falls to No. 8 and takes on ninth-seeded Tennessee.
There are a few potential blockbusters in there, highlighted by the Texas-Alabama showdown.
All four contests will be played on campus, with the quarterfinals being moved to bowl sites. That’s another aspect of this new system that is appealing.
