College Football Playoff Field…<\/p>\n
UNDATED (AP) \u2014 Alabama edged out Ohio State for the final spot in the College Football Playoff field. The Crimson Tide’s reward is a playoff rematch against defending national champion Clemson in the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans on Jan. 1.<\/p>\n
Clemson’s inclusion as the top seed in the bracket was expected since the Tigers (12-1) were No. 1 in the previous CFP rankings and then routed Miami 38-3 in the ACC title game on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The inclusion of Alabama (11-1) was much more contentious. Fourth-seeded Alabama didn’t even win the Southeastern Conference West after losing to Auburn in the final game of the regular season, but was impressive until that loss.<\/p>\n
Clemson beat Alabama 35-31 in the national championship game last season. The Tigers have made it back to the CFP with a dominant defense and the emergence of junior quarterback Kelly Bryant.<\/p>\n
AP Top 25 Football Poll<\/p>\n
The Associated Press voters prefer Alabama over Ohio State.<\/p>\n
In the final Top 25 of the regular season, the Crimson Tide was No. 4 and the Buckeyes were No. 5. The poll was released about an hour before the College Football Playoff pairings were being revealed. Which team gets the final spot in the final four caused a debate between the Crimson Tide and Buckeyes. In the AP media poll, Alabama received 1,307 points to Ohio State’s 1,300.<\/p>\n
Clemson finished the regular season No. 1, followed by Oklahoma and Georgia.<\/p>\n
Wisconsin was No. 6, followed by Auburn, Southern California, Penn State and UCF. The 10th-ranked Knights are the last unbeaten team in the Football Bowl Subdivision and matched their best ranking ever. UCF finished the 2013 season 10th.<\/p>\n
Boise State moved into the rankings at No. 25.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
College Football Playoff Field… UNDATED (AP) \u2014 Alabama edged out Ohio State for the final spot in the College Football Playoff field. The Crimson Tide’s reward is a playoff rematch against defending national champion Clemson in the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans on Jan. 1. Clemson’s inclusion as the top […]<\/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-134089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=134089"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134090,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134089\/revisions\/134090"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/108787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=134089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=134089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=134089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}