The College Football Playoff has a clear favorite… and it’s the lowest seed left on the board.
Ohio State dropped all the way to the eighth seed in the College Football Playoff bracket when it lost to Michigan in the final week of the regular season. Ryan Day may have been coaching for his job when the Buckeyes hosted Tennessee for a first-round game a few days before Christmas.
Angst reigned around the program. Since then, all Ohio State has done is put on perhaps the two best single-game efforts of the whole season, cruising past Tennessee and then blowing top-seeded Oregon to bits in a 41-21 Rose Bowl win that wasn’t as close as even that lopsided score suggests.
The rest of the playoff would feel like an OSU coronation if the whole world hadn’t just seen this team inexplicably flop a few weeks ago. The Buckeyes will first need to win a College Football Playoff semifinal game in the Cotton Bowl against a Texas program that looked very gettable in a quarterfinal escape against Arizona State and has a wide range of offensive line health problems. Yet as vulnerable as Texas is, the Longhorns have the defensive line to beat anybody on the right day.
Elsewhere, Notre Dame and Penn State will put on a slugfest at the Orange Bowl. The Nittany Lions played quite well in taking care of business against two lesser opponents, SMU and Boise State, in the first two rounds. Notre Dame will be a different kind of test after it moved past Georgia in the Sugar Bowl, representing the chance for James Franklin to shed the “can’t beat the heavyweights” label that has been his primary shortcoming in Happy Valley.
Here’s one big question about each semifinal, plus picks from Opta Analyst’s TRACR and me. On second thought, because we’ve only got two FBS games this week, let’s pose two questions per game, one for each team.
Oh, and it’s worth noting the TRACR projection model hasn’t missed a CFP pick yet (8-0).
Orange Bowl: No. 6 Penn State vs. No. 7 Notre Dame, Jan. 9 at 7:30 p.m. EST at Hard Rock Stadium
The Big Penn State Question: What happens if Abdul Carter isn’t his usual self?
Penn State’s best player is Carter, the All-American edge rusher who will soon be an early first-round NFL pick. Carter’s 46 pressures, 12.0 adjusted sacks, and three tipped passes all lead the Nittany Lions, as does his 28% pressure rate. Carter is a sackmaster but not just that, as he also leads the squad with 26 run stuffs.
He’s one of the great defensive players to come through the sport in the past handful of years. He is also a medical question mark for this game, having left the Fiesta Bowl quarterfinal against Boise State with an arm injury. Franklin said Carter will make every effort to get back. How operational he’ll be is unknowable.
Carter has been durable during his three-year career and become a full-time edge rusher after experimenting as a linebacker in past years. There’s no great way to tell what the Nittany Lions defense would look like if Carter didn’t play or played as a reduced version of himself. Expanded attention would fall on fellow edge player Dani Dennis-Sutton, who’s next on the team with 30 pressures (and a 20.8% pressure rate) and 9.0 adjusted sacks.
The Big Notre Dame Question: Can the Irish cover Tyler Warren?
For most teams, the answer has been “no.” Warren had a monstrous season and won the Mackey Award as the country’s top tight end, but his 98 catches and 1,158 receiving yards (plus some contributions as a runner and thrower) do not quite tell the story of how good he has been. Warren has been Penn State’s only consistent, reliable receiving option this season and has succeeded despite opposing defenses knowing that.
Warren is a 6-foot-6, 261-pounder with an athletic advantage on linebackers and a size advantage on safeties. There are no ideal matchups in college football against a player like him, but Notre Dame is, in theory, equipped better than most teams. The Irish have an All-American safety, Xavier Watts, and could align him over Warren for much of the game.
They’ve handled tight ends very well all season, limiting the position group to 19.6 receiving yards per game (seventh in FBS) on just two catches (eighth). Notre Dame is one of seven teams to not allow a touchdown to a tight end. If anyone’s going to slow Warren down, this is the defense.
- TRACR’s Projected Winner (With Probability): Notre Dame (65.0%)
- Kirshner’s Pick: Notre Dame -1.5
Cotton Bowl: No. 5 Texas vs. No. 8 Ohio State, Jan. 10 at 7:30 p.m. EST at AT&T Stadium
The Big Ohio State Question: How good is this offensive line, really?
The line has been Ohio State’s relative weak point for a few years. In this playoff run, it is missing both its starting center and left tackle with injuries. That looked like a huge problem in the Michigan loss, but the Buckeyes have steamrolled both Oregon and Tennessee with this mix-and-match line leading the way.
Backs Quinshon Judkins and TreVeyon Henderson both ran wild against a strong Oregon front, and quarterback Will Howard had enough time in the pocket to do more or less whatever he wanted.
Enter the Texas defensive line, which has a good argument for being the best in the sport. The Longhorns are loaded with star edge rushers: Colin Simmons, Barryn Sorrell, Trey Moore and Ethan Burke all generate pressure rates of at least 17.8%. They may not even be the best players on the line, because tackles Vernon Broughton (18.1% run disruption rate) and Alfred Collins (16.7%) are so dominant in the middle.
If Texas is to pull an upset as a touchdown underdog, these large men will be the driving force.
The Big Texas Question: How healthy is this offensive line, really?
The answer had better be “more than last week.” In addition to three running back injuries (including two long standing, season-ending ones to would-be starters), the Longhorns have had major health problems on the line.
All-American left tackle Kelvin Banks was hurt late in the season and left the Horns’ semifinal briefly with an apparent leg injury before coming back into the game. His counterpart at right tackle, Cam Williams, did not play in the semifinal at all. Center Jake Majors left the team’s first-round win over Clemson but was back in the lineup against Arizona State.
All together, the line did not have a good showing at the Peach Bowl, giving up three sacks of Quinn Ewers and paving the way for a 2.5-yard average carry with sacks stripped out. Quintrevion Wisner’s longest carry was 7 yards. He totaled 45 on 18 carries, matching the team-wide average.
The Ohio State defense just sacked Oregon’s quarterback eight times, technically holding the Ducks to a negative rushing total in the Rose Bowl. Texas’ offensive line needs a big turnaround, be it medical or schematic.
- TRACR’s Projected Winner: Ohio State (60.0%)
- Kirshner’s Pick: Ohio State -6
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