College Football Playoff: Final four revealed, did committee get it right?

The final College Football Playoff Rankings are out and the four teams aren’t a surprise but the order of the teams is sure to surprise many.

There weren’t any upsets on Championship Weekend so the playoff committee caught a huge break as they didn’t have to make too many difficult choices as they revealed the final four teams that will compete for the national championship.

The No. 1 Clemson Tigers capped their perfect regular season with a win over the No. 10 North Carolina Tar Heels to win the ACC.

The No. 2 Alabama Crimson Tide won their third SEC Championship in the last four years with Derrick Henry leading the team past the Florida Gators in a slugfest.

There would be no surprises from No. 3 Oklahoma Sooners who were idle after finishing their season last week with a win over Oklahoma State.

With no upsets in the ACC or SEC Championship Game that meant the Stanford Cardinal would be left out of the playoff, which is what was expected after they suffered their second loss of the season in November. They needed at least one upset and they didn’t get it.

That left the winner of the Big Ten Championship Game between the Iowa Hawkeyes and Michigan State Spartans in and it was the No. 5 Spartans getting a touchdown with 27 seconds remaining to hand Iowa their first loss of the year and send them to the Rose Bowl for their consolation prize.

But entering Sunday’s reveal there was some suspense about whether Oklahoma could drop to No. 4 to avoid playing in the Cotton Bowl in Arlington and with the Big Ten champ playing a conference championship game. Michigan State has four wins over teams in the top 16.

When the rankings were revealed it was Clemson, Alabama are 1-2 as we all expected, but it was Michigan State moving up one spot and Oklahoma moving down a spot as I projected last night.

So Clemson will play Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl and Alabama will play Michigna State in the Cotton Bowl on Dec. 31.