COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF<\/p>\n
IRVING, Texas (AP) \u2014 The College Football Playoff is set and it is historic: Cincinnati will play Alabama in the Cotton Bowl and Michigan will face Georgia in the Orange Bowl on New Year\u2019s Eve.<\/p>\n
Fourth-seeded Cincinnati becomes the first team to break through the CFP\u2019s glass ceiling and make college football\u2019s final four from a non-Power Five conference. The Bearcats won the American Athletic Conference and head into the postseason as the only unbeaten team in the country. Their reward will be a matchup with the defending national champions.<\/p>\n
The Crimson Tide is in the playoff for the seventh time in its eight-year history.<\/p>\n
Michigan is making its first appearance in the playoff. Georgia is in for the second time, and first since the 2017 season.<\/p>\n
BOWL SELECTION DAY<\/p>\n
Notre Dame against Oklahoma in Fiesta Bowl<\/p>\n
UNDATED (AP) \u2014 Fifth-ranked Notre Dame will face No. 9 Oklahoma State in the Fiesta Bowl in a matchup of two teams that just missed the College Football Playoff.<\/p>\n
The Fighting Irish finished fifth in the final CFP rankings after coach Brian Kelly left for LSU last week. Defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman was promoted to head coach on Friday.<\/p>\n
The Cowboys came up inches short of a possible CFP berth when Dezmon Jackson was stopped just short of the end zone pylon in the final seconds of a 21-16 loss to Baylor in the Big 12 championship game.<\/p>\n
Among the other bowl matchups:<\/p>\n
\u2014 No. 6 Baylor and No. 8 Mississippi will match up in the Sugar Bowl on New Year\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Utah will face Ohio State in the 108th edition of the Rose Bowl. The Utes will be making their first appearance in the Granddaddy of Them All on Jan. 1 after their 38-10 victory over Oregon in the Pac-12 championship game.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Pittsburgh\u2019s reward for its first ACC championship is a date with Michigan State in the Peach Bowl. Pitt beat Wake Forest 45-21 in the ACC championship game on Saturday night. The Dec. 30 Peach Bowl will be the Panthers\u2019 first New Year\u2019s Six bowl since 2004.<\/p>\n
\u2014 No. 12 BYU draws upstart UAB as Independence Bowl opponent.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Mountain West Conference champion Utah State will face Oregon State of the Pac-12 Conference in the inaugural LA Bowl on Dec. 18 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, the home of the Los Angeles Rams and Chargers of the NFL.<\/p>\n
COLLEGE FOOTBALL-POLL<\/p>\n
UNDATED (AP) \u2014 Alabama will head into the postseason the same way it started the regular season \u2014 as No. 1 in the nation.<\/p>\n
The Crimson Tide reclaimed the top spot in The Associated Press college football poll after beating previously top-ranked Georgia. Defending national champion Alabama, which was No. 1 for the first six weeks of this season, jumped three spots after dominating the Southeastern Conference title game. The Bulldogs fell to No. 3.<\/p>\n
In between, Michigan was No. 2 for a second straight week after winning the Big Ten Conference championship for the first time since 2004. Cincinnati slipped a spot to No. 4. The Bearcats are the only remaining unbeaten FBS team in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF IRVING, Texas (AP) \u2014 The College Football Playoff is set and it is historic: Cincinnati will play Alabama in the Cotton Bowl and Michigan will face Georgia in the Orange Bowl on New Year\u2019s Eve. Fourth-seeded Cincinnati becomes the first team to break through the CFP\u2019s glass […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":108787,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-240437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=240437"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240438,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240437\/revisions\/240438"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/108787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=240437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=240437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=240437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}