College Football Playoff: Ohio State’s in, TCU and Baylor are out

Alabama, Oregon, Florida State and Ohio State will participate in the first playoff in major college football history. The College Football Playoff committee announced its decision Sunday. (AP) (Note: This story has been updated from a previous version.) GRAPEVINE, Tex. — Joy filled Ohio as woe flecked Texas on Sunday with the release of the inaugural College Football Playoff field. The Ohio State Buckeyes, moored at No. 16 in the rankings as of Oct. 28, finished a long climb into the four-team playoff by snaring the coveted No. 4 spot. The Texan hopefuls Baylor and TCU, Big 12 members whose conference cannot stage a championship game to advance their case with the selection committee, landed on the melancholy fringe at Nos. 5 and 6, respectively. Ohio State (12-1) will face No. 1 Alabama (12-1) on New Year’s Day in one national semifinal, while No. 2 Oregon (12-1) will play No. 3 Florida State (13-0), the defending national champion, in another. The four-team playoff is the product of an about-face from college football after 16 seasons in which the sports used a composite of human polls and computer rankings to produce the two teams that would meet for the national championship. The shift to the playoff system was an attempt to alleviate controversy, but instead it seems to have merely shifted the angst from the No. 2 and No. 3 teams to those occupying the No. 4 and No. 5 slots, the cutoff this season that divided exultation in Ohio from the tears in Texas. As the 12-member selection committee wrapped up seven weeks of meetings near the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, Ohio State (12-1) rode its loud 59-0 win over Wisconsin in the Big Ten championship game to a playoff spot and left Baylor (11-1) and TCU (11-1) as outsiders. …

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