Austin Bishop

Well, it’s all set. On Dec. 31, Alabama will face Cincinnati in the Cotton Bowl, and Georgia will take on Michigan in the Orange Bowl in the College Football Playoff semifinals to see who will match up Jan. 10 in Indianapolis to determine the national championship.

While I truly thought Georgia and head coach Kirby Smart would finally take care of Alabama in the SEC Championship Game, it still couldn’t be called a surprise that Alabama won, and both the Tide and the Bulldogs made it to the semifinal round of the CFP.

Georgia had punched its ticket almost a month ago. It also seemed fairly certain that Cincinnati would wade through the American Athletic Conference and remain undefeated, thus earning a spot in the semis.

The question was really who would be the fourth team.

Would it be Ohio State or Oklahoma? Those were the two that seemed to have the best chance four weeks ago.

But after Oklahoma State beat Oklahoma and Michigan beat Ohio State, things changed drastically. Oregon thought it had a chance, but Utah proved to the Ducks — twice — that their shot at making the playoffs wasn’t much to quack about at all.

To be honest, Jim Harbaugh and his band of Wolverines from Ann Arbor still didn’t have me convinced despite their strong showing in the win over Ohio State. It seemed to me it would be a Michigan type of thing to do to lose in the Big Ten Championship game and get ousted from playoff consideration. Notre Dame, who was eventually the fifth wheel at the party, was certainly counting on that.

But the Wolverines smacked the Iowa Hawkeyes Saturday night and solidified their spot at No. 2. Some might argue that Michigan should have been seeded No 1, but ’Bama’s convincing win over then No. 1 Georgia was certainly enough to push the Tide to the top. Anyone who thought the committee was going to match up Georgia and Alabama in the semifinal round was either silly or not paying attention to how things work. If those two were gong to play again, and they may not, it was going to be in the national championship game.

Both Alabama and Georgia are big favorites to win their semifinal match-ups, but that’s far from a sure thing.

While I have been sure that Cincinnati was going to make the playoffs, and somewhat confident the Bearcats deserved to be there, I haven’t come close to saying that have much of a shot at winning the title. The Bearcats beat Notre Dame in South Bend, which was no small feat. In fact, that was the only blemish on the Fighting Irish’s record this season. But do I think UC can beat Alabama, then follow that up 10 days later with a win over either Georgia or Michigan? That would be borderline outlandish.

Alabama wins in the Cotton Bowl, that’s close to a sure thing. The big question is who will the Tide play in Indianapolis for the title?

Did the loss to Alabama put some doubt into the minds of the Bulldogs as to whether they belonged on the big stage? Is Michigan really as good as they showed against Ohio State and Iowa? Admittedly, that was pretty good.

In the end, I expect UGA to take a tighter win than many expect over Michigan and set up another showdown between Georgia and Alabama — this one for the National Championship. In January 2018, those two teams met for the 2017 national title, and No. 4-seeded Alabama took a 26-23 win over No. 3-seeded Georgia.

If Alabama wins, it would be the third championship for the Tide in the last five years and the fourth in seven. If Alabama beats Cincinnati in the semis, it would have Nick Saban’s bunch playing for the National Championship for the sixth time in seven seasons. That’s fairly dominate, like it or not.

If you go back to the BCS era, the Crimson Tide have won six of the last 12 titles. A win on Jan. 10 would give them seven in a 13-year span. As far as the Southeastern Conference is concerned, if either Georgia or Alabama wins, it will give the SEC 12 national titles in the last 16 seasons

Three of the other four titles in that span went to Southern teams, with ACC members Clemson (twice) and Florida State (once) claiming those titles. The other went to Ohio State in 2014. 

To make things look even less promising for those not playing football in the SEC, the next time Oklahoma and Texas win National Championships, they will likely be members of the SEC as well. Oklahoma currently has seven, with the last coming in 2000, and Texas has four, with the last being claimed in 2005.

Austin Bishop, AKA The Old Sports Dude, has been covering high school, college, amateur and professional sports since 1975. He is currently pastor of Great Commission Assembly of God in Philadelphia. He may be contacted by email at starsportsboss@yahoo.com.