College football’s playoff lineup will be set this weekend, as will the pairings for other bowl games. Here are 10 things to know about how it all will work:
1. How are the playoff pairings determined?
The College Football Playoff selection committee will unveil its final rankings of the season early Sunday afternoon and place its top four teams in the national semifinals. The Nos. 1 and 4 teams will meet in one semifinal, the Nos. 2 and 3 teams in the other.
2. What time Sunday will the final rankings and playoff pairings be revealed?
They’ll be announced on ESPN during a four-hour College Football Playoff Selection Show, which begins at noon. The playoff semifinal pairings will be revealed at 12:30 p.m. and the rest of the Top 25 at 2 p.m., according to playoff officials.
3. Where will the semifinals be played? And which game at which site?
They’ll be played in the Rose and Sugar bowls, both on New Year’s Day. Which bowl gets which semifinal will be driven by the No. 1 team, which typically is assigned to the semifinal closest to its campus. For example, if Clemson is No. 1, it would play the No. 4 team in the Sugar Bowl, leaving the Nos. 2 and 3 teams to play in the Rose Bowl.
4. When will pairings be set for other bowl games?
Playoff officials say matchups will be revealed at 3 p.m. Sunday, also on ESPN, for four other major bowls -- the Orange, Peach, Cotton and Fiesta. By Sunday evening, matchups also should be known for 34 other bowl games.
5. How are the Orange, Peach, Cotton and Fiesta matchups determined?
The Orange Bowl will set its matchup first among those four bowls, getting the highest-ranked ACC team not in the playoff vs. the highest-ranked non-playoff, non-champion team from the SEC or Big Ten. The loser of the Clemson-Miami ACC Championship game probably will be the Orange’s ACC team. (Caveat: Depending on what happens elsewhere, there may be a small chance that Clemson, currently ranked No. 1, could make the playoff even with a loss to Miami, giving the ACC two playoff teams. In that improbable case, Virginia Tech would be Orange-bound.) The ACC representative’s opponent in the Orange Bowl likely would be Alabama if the Crimson Tide fails to reach the playoff.
The CFP selection committee will set the matchups for the Peach, Cotton and Fiesta bowls. Any power-conference champion not in the playoff or the Orange is assured a berth in the Peach, Cotton or Fiesta. Also, a berth in one of those three bowls goes to the highest-ranked team from the “Group of Five” conferences, which this season will be the winner of the American Athletic Conference title game between Central Florida and Memphis. The remaining Peach/Cotton/Fiesta spots will go to the selection committee’s highest-ranked teams not in the playoff or the Orange.
6. What criteria will the committee use in divvying up six teams for the Peach, Cotton and Fiesta bowls?
In assigning matchups to those bowls, the committee will attempt to avoid rematches of regular-season games and will attempt to avoid sending teams to a bowl where they played recently. It also will seek to create regionally appealing matchups if possible.
7. Do Peach Bowl officials get any input into their game’s matchup?
No, that was delegated entirely to the playoff committee as part of the deal that made the Peach one of the six rotating hosts of semifinal games. (The Peach hosted a semifinal last season and will get one again in the 2019 season.) Based on the criteria the committee uses, Peach Bowl president and CEO Gary Stokan guesses his bowl will be assigned a matchup of the Central Florida-Memphis winner vs. an SEC or Big Ten team. He plans to attend the AAC title game in Orlando on Saturday.
8. Who’s on the CFP selection committee?
Texas Tech athletic director Kirby Hocutt (chairman), former Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer, former Southern Mississippi coach Jeff Bower, former Central Michigan coach Herb Deromedi, Robert Morris University president Chris Howard, former NCAA executive vice president Tom Jernstedt, former Vanderbilt coach Bobby Johnson, former Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long, Oregon athletic director Rob Mullens, Clemson athletic director Dan Radakovich, Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith, former USA Today college football reporter Steve Wieberg, and former Stanford, Notre Dame and Washington coach Tyrone Willingham.
9. Where will the committee members convene this weekend?
They will gather at a Grapevine, Texas, resort, the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center, near Dallas. They'll watch Saturday's conference championship games on TV and discuss/debate their final rankings deep into Saturday night and again Sunday morning. See details here.
10. And the biggest game of all will be in Atlanta, right?
Yes, the CFP's national championship game, matching the winners of the Rose and Sugar bowls, will be played in Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Jan. 8, a Monday night. It'll mark the first time college football's national champion is crowned in Atlanta. A long list of activities will surround the game. See details here.
