College football conference championship week is in the books. After every week fans can take away things from what happened on the field. Here are five things learned from college football conference championship week.
With both Georgia and Utah losing, the CFP Committee had an easy job this weekend picking the top four teams. The three undefeated teams for sure get in. After that, the only logical choice for the CFP is the Big 12 Champion. Oklahoma was able to hold off Baylor in overtime to win the game.
LSU, Ohio State, Clemson and Oklahoma are easy choices for the Committee. It is not often that three teams are able to go undefeated in college football, even if it did happen last year, so the Committee won’t have to answer any angry fan mail after the weekend.
One major conference is going to get left out of the CFP, if not more. It was designed to create controversy and some conferences have to figure things out if they want to make the CFP. With Utah losing to Oregon, the Pac-12 will miss the CFP for the third straight season.
Although Oregon and Washington were able to make the CFP in the first few years, the Pac-12 needs to stop beating up on each other if they want to get back there again. Oregon might be rethinking scheduling Auburn in the nonconference schedule after finishing the season 10-2.
Mike Norvell with Memphis (Photo by 247sports.com)
The Group of Five conferences have one spot in the New Year’s Six Bowl Games. The Cotton Bowl will host the highest-ranked team out of the Group of Five. This year, that team is going to be Memphis after they defeated the Cincinnati Bearcats in two straight weeks to win the AAC Championship.
Boise State and Appalachian State both are one-loss teams from the Group of Five conferences, but they don’t have the same case as Memphis. In addition, Memphis beat a ranked team in the AAC Championship, while Boise State and Appalachian State both beat unranked teams.
Coming into the weekend, Joe Burrow was favored by a wide margin in the Heisman race and it didn’t look like anyone would be able to catch him. That was confirmed after his performance in the SEC Championship on Saturday. Burrow finished with 349 passing yards and four touchdowns.
Not only was it an impressive performance, but Burrow did it against a Georgia defense that was among the best in the country. He has the second-most passing yards in the country this season. The stats and the big wins will come together to make Joe Burrow the next Heisman winner.
After leading his team to a big C-USA Conference Championship over UAB, Lane Kiffin has accepted a new job. Ole Miss will be bringing in Kiffin to be their next head coach. This comes after his time as the offensive coordinator at Alabama and a very successful stint at Florida Atlantic that includes two conference championships.
Following Memphis’ win over Cincinnati in the AAC Championship, Mike Norvell accepted the Florida State job. Norvell did a great job of keeping the Memphis job steady and winning football games. The Seminoles bided their time in searching for a coach, but found one who did a lot without the luxuries of being at Florida State. Now, he may thrive.
Make sure to check out our college football page for more updates and rankings.
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