The College Football Playoffs have arrived. Here’s a primer for Saturday’s two semi-finals:
Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic — No. 3 Notre Dame (12-0) vs. No. 2 Clemson (13-0) — Saturday, Dec. 29, at 4 p.m. ET on ESPN
The quarterback play and the defenses are the story coming into this match-up of undefeated teams. Both Clemson and Notre Dame had guys that seized the starting job and never let it go, taking their team’s offenses to completely different heights along the way.
Notre Dame is undefeated for the first time since the Fighting Irish lost to Alabama in the national title game in 2012. Brandon Wimbush wasn’t inspiring confidence, although he did just enough to help beat Michigan in the opener.
He started the first three games of the year before being replaced by Ian Book. The scores tell the story: 24-17 win over No. 14 Michigan at home, 24-16 win over Ball State at home, and a 22-17 win over Vanderbilt at home.
Book’s first game? A 56-27 win on the road at Wake Forest. The following week? A 38-17 home win over No. 7 Stanford. The week after that? A 45-23 romp on the road at ranked Virginia Tech. The offense is completely different with Book under center. He has thrown for 2,468 yards at a 70.4 percent clip with 19 touchdown passes and just 6 picks. Meanwhile, running back Dexter Williams is fast approaching 1,000 yards on the season after missing the first four games. Notre Dame has the country’s 10th-best scoring defense and the 34th-best scoring offense.
The Tigers dwarf those numbers by comparison, though, because Clemson has the country’s second-best scoring defense and the nation’s fifth-best scoring offense.
True freshman Trevor Lawrence earned starting time and eventually won the job over Kelly Bryant. Lawrence has thrown for more than 2,600 yards at a 65 percent clip with 24 touchdown passes and just four interceptions.
The offensive line has done a tremendous job this year and maybe the biggest beneficiary has been Tigers running back Travis Etienne. Etienne is top 10 nationally in just about every major statistical category for running backs. He led the nation in rushing touchdowns with 21, has run for nearly 1,500 yards, and is averaging 8.3 yards per carry.
Notre Dame has the nation’s 33rd-best run defense, and the Fighting Irish will have to do a good job against Etienne if they don’t want Clemson to control the tempo and flow of the game.
After getting knocked out of the game against Syracuse with a concussion, Lawrence and the Tigers started bulldozing opponents.
It started the very next week with a 60-point win on the road against Wake Forest. After a 41-7 dismantling of No. 17 NC State at home, the Tigers won 59-10 at FSU, 77-16 at home against Louisville, 27-7 on the road against ranked Boston College, 35-6 at home against Duke, 56-35 at home against South Carolina in the regular season finale, and 42-10 against Pitt in the ACC title game.
Clemson is on a roll right now.
The Tigers are as solid as it gets when it comes to their front seven, but the secondary can be exposed at times. Two quarterbacks, Kellen Mond of Texas A&M and Jake Bentley of South Carolina, had a lot of success when it came to throwing the ball. Mond and the Aggies nearly beat then-second-ranked Clemson in College Station in their second game of the year, but Kelly Bryant’s heroics saved the day for the Tigers. Mond was 23-of-40, a 57.5 percent completion rate, for 430 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions.
Bentley was 32-of-50, a 64 percent completion rate, for 510 yards and five touchdown passes with one pick. Thanks to Bentley’s 510 passing yards, the Gamecocks were able to rack up 600 yards of offense. Unfortunately for Bentley, the South Carolina defense was nowhere to be found, as the Tigers put up 744 total yards of offense with 393 through the air and 351 on the ground.
Could we see Clemson’s secondary get shredded again? Book is certainly more than capable of putting up big numbers.
The Line: Clemson (-12.5)
My Pick: With an offense and defense ranked in the top five nationally, Clemson is the best and most balanced team in the country not named Alabama. While Book could definitely exploit the secondary, Clemson’s strong overall defense and its firepower on offense should be enough to get the Tigers into the CFP title game. I’m taking Clemson to win and cover the spread.
Capital One Orange Bowl — No. 4 Oklahoma (12-1) vs. No. 1 Alabama (13-0) — Saturday, Dec. 29, at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN
It seems a little crazy that in a year with such incredible quarterback play from coast to coast (think Gardner Minshew, Dwayne Haskins, and Will Grier), that the two starting quarterbacks in this game, Tua Tagovailoa of Alabama and Heisman Trophy-winner Kyler Murray of Oklahoma, left everybody fighting for third-best.
Tua was the Heisman front-runner early on after he seized the starting job and turned in brilliant performance after brilliant performance. Alabama was so dominant with him under center that the first time he played in the fourth quarter of a game this season was in the Crimson Tide’s ninth game of the year. He had some injuries this year and had to leave the SEC Championship game against Georgia, but he should be good to go on Saturday.
In the event that injuries force him to leave the game, Nick Saban can simply call upon Jalen Hurts to run the offense. Hurts’ career record: 26-2. He’s got ice in his veins, as evidenced by him leading ‘Bama to a come-from-behind victory to beat the Georgia Bulldogs and win the SEC title.
Kyler Murray didn’t have Alabama’s vaunted defense, so Oklahoma needed every bit of production they could get from Murray in order to win. The Sooners had the nation’s top-scoring offense this year. Who was No. 2? Alabama. However, Murray is on pace to shatter the FBS record for passing efficiency, a mark set just last year by Baker Mayfield, last year’s Heisman Trophy winner and his predecessor at Oklahoma. His numbers are jaw-dropping: 4,053 passing yards, 70.9 percent completion rate, 40 touchdown passes, only 7 interceptions, 892 rushing yards, 7.3 yards per carry, and 11 rushing touchdowns.
Unsurprisingly, quarterback play will be the big factor in this game.
Oklahoma’s pass defense is ranked dead last nationally. That’s not a place you want to be, especially against a quarterback who threw for 3,353 yards and 37 touchdowns with just four interceptions. Meanwhile, Alabama has the country’s fourth-best scoring defense.
Quarterbacks that can run and throw really well like Cam Newton, Deshaun Watson, and Johnny Manziel have all given Nick Saban headaches. Manziel and Newton are both Heisman Trophy winners while Watson was nominated twice and could definitely have won each time. Murray presents an incredible challenge to this defense. I think he’ll try to spread Alabama out and force them to make plays in space against his athletic backs and receivers. Oklahoma’s offensive line is one of the best in the nation, and it is in for its biggest test of the season. Luckily for the Sooners, if the pocket collapses, Murray has proven his ability to scramble and improvise and make something out of nothing.
Quinnen Williams will be crucial for the Alabama defense and might be the most important player in this game that isn’t a quarterback. He’s a defensive lineman who creates disruption and creates incredible pressure from the interior instead of coming off the edge. He has great quickness and chases guys down.
An interesting stat that could very well play a factor in the game will be red zone defense. Alabama has the country’s third-best red zone defense, only allowing opponents to score on 66.7 percent of their trips to the red zone. In 13 games this season, Alabama allowed a measly 30 trips to the red zone, and its opponents could only muster 17 touchdowns and three field goals.
In order for Oklahoma to win, it’ll have to come away with touchdowns on nearly all of its trips to the red zone. It can’t settle for touchdowns on just over half of its trips. That won’t get the job done.
The Line: Alabama (-14.0)
My Pick: I don’t love the matchup against Murray, but I think Alabama’s defense will hold up and do a better job against him than Oklahoma’s defense will do against Tagovailoa. I expect to see a high-scoring game, but I’m taking the Tide to win and cover the spread, setting up another epic installment in the recent Alabama-Clemson rivalry.
