Well the people have spoken and we actually have a college football playoff for the first time ever. That doesn’t mean there won’t be complaining after today about the playoff, just like there was with the BCS, but that’s neither here nor there. We should be in for a great day of college football capped off with the two playoff games later today. I hope everyone has a great 2015, let’s start it off right by making some money.

5pm Rose Bowl @ Rose Bowl - Pasadena, CA

Oregon -7.5 vs Florida State

At first glance you could make the case that the Ducks should blow the Seminoles out of the water in the Rose Bowl. But don’t make that mistake because the Noles find ways to win games. Maybe they play down to their opponents and they clearly have difficulty starting games off strong but they always find a way to bounce back after rocky starts to pull these games out. You don’t win 29 straight games by accident.

This game seems features two of the most exciting players in all of college football and likely the top two picks in the upcoming NFL Draft in the past two Heisman trophy winners, Marcus Mariota and Jameis Winston. While the offenses they run are very different from each other, they still both revolve around the success of their quarterbacks.

The prevailing team will likely need to have their defense step up and make plays. The Seminoles defense is not on par with the squad that helped them win a national championship a season ago, but the Ducks were never truely tested this year. Not to knock the Oregon team for blowing all of their opponents out, they only played in one one score game all season and they lost it at home to Arizona 31-24 back in the beginning of October. That was also the only game in which they didn’t score at least 38 points all season. On the other side of things Florida State won seven of their thirteen games by one score or less. I’m not saying that this makes Florida State better by any stretch of the imagination but I think it may make them more ready to play in a battle of a playoff game. Neither team has played anyone anywhere close to the level of opponent they will be playing today but having the experience of pulling out close games (and winning the national championship last year) is going to go a long way in the first ever CFB playoff game.

What could prove to be the biggest factor in today’s game is the injury suffered in a non contact drill leading up to the Rose Bowl by the Ducks’ First Team All America Cornerback Ifo Ekpre-Olomu, who is widely considered one of the top NFL Draft picks. Replacing him in the starting lineup will be redshirt freshman Chris Seisay. Let’s just say replacing a first round pick with a redshirt freshman against Jameis Winston in the Rose Bowl might not lead to good things for Oregon.

Personally I think Oregon scores first and everyone riding Mariota and the Ducks exhale before Florida State sucks the life out of the likely pro-Ducks crowd once again by battling back with Jameis Winston winning yet another close game in large part thanks to the loss of Ekpre-Olomu.

While neither QB has played in a Rose Bowl, the last time Florida State played in Pasadena, they were winning the national championship. I believe the safe bet is to just take Florida State +7.5 because I don’t think Oregon can pull away from Winston and the Noles offense even in a best case scenario hypothetical. I would suggest hopping on the Florida State moneyline at +250.

8:30pm Sugar Bowl @ Superdome - New Orleans, LA

Alabama -8 vs Ohio State

Well if there’s a coach out there that can upend Alabama it is probably Urban Meyer. He has plenty of experience attacking this type of team but it’s unclear if he has the firepower to get the job done with this Ohio State team.

This clearly isn’t the same Alabama team of the past few years. They barely escaped Arkansask LSU, Mississippi State and Auburn this year and they lost at Ole Miss who just got rolled by TCU the other day. Blake Sims is very shaky under center and you can bet your ass that Urban Meyer knows that.

That being said Ohio State does not deserve to be here. They are a public team and that paired with the asswhooping they put on Wisconsin got them into the #4 seed over TCU and Baylor. If the Big 12 had a championship game Ohio State probably doesn’t get in. They should’t have gotten in regardless just based on their resume. They won at #8 Michigan State, @ #25 Minnesota and vs #13 Wisconsin in the Big 10 title game. Those are their only games against ranked opponents. They lost by two touchdowns at home to a Virginia Tech team that went 7-6 and had losses at home to East Carolina, Georgia Tech, Miami (by 24) and BC. They lost on the road to Pitt and Wake Forest (6-3 in 2OT).

Now Ohio State must turn to their backup QB, a redshirt freshman, against Nick Saban and an Alabama team that had a month to prep for them. Every year there would be plenty of assholes complaining about how the BCS sucked and now here we are, the assholes got what they wanted, a College Football playoff. It would only be fitting to see TCU get left out, make a statement by beating the piss out of Ole Miss only to have Ohio State get rolled by Alabama to let all the assholes like me start complaining about the playoff. Unfortunately any complaints from here on out will only make the playoff move in the opposite direction by possibly adding teams to the playoff.

The safe play would be to tease Alabama down to -2 and the under to under 65 and just hope Alabama’s defense can stop the Buckeye’s redshirt freshman backup quarterback. But why get cute? Just hop on Alabama -8 and be safe having won by halftime.

mlz

Thursday, January 1, 2015