College Football Playoff: OU’s 4-seed beneficiary of perfect storm

Even before the four Power Five championship games were played on Saturday, there wasn’t much mystery about at least three of the teams that would make the final cut for the 2019 College Football Playoff.

Barring a major miracle short of cancelling Christmas, the entire college football world knew that an undefeated LSU, Ohio State and defending national champion and also unbeated Clemson were in. hands down. The only questions were who would be seeded one and two and which team would claim the fourth and final spot in the bracket.

And after No. 5 Utah’s loss to Oregon — which at one time sat at No. 6 in the College Football Playoff rankings before encountering chaos that sent the Ducks tumbling back into the second ten — in the Pac-12 Championship, it opened the door for the Big 12 champion to seize the fourth Playoff spot.

But the Big 12’s hopes were pinned to No. 4 Georgia not pulling off one of those major miracles by knocking off LSU for the SEC championship.

Oklahoma, sitting at No. 6 when the penultimate CFP rankings came out last Tuesday, narrowly escaped No. 7 Baylor, winning 30-23 in overtime, to capture its fifth consecutive Big 12 crown.

With the Sooners winning the Big 12 for a 13th time in 24 years, one more domino fell. That left what appeared to be one remaining obstacle, Georgia, standing in the way of Oklahoma joining the 2019 Playoff party.

A Georgia win would have slammed the Playoff door shut on the Sooners and kept them standing on the threshold. And there was also the possibility that the Bulldogs could lose in a close game with LSU and still leave Oklahoma on the outside looking in.

The Sooners needed LSU not just to win, but do so convincingly, and then sit back and wait to see what decision the CFP selection committee would ultimately come to.

LSU came through, defeating SEC East Division champion Georgia 37-10, a winning margin than was enough to have the selection committee move the Tigers ahead of Ohio State as the No. 1 Playoff seed. As the top seed, LSU will play the No. 4 Oklahoma at the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl on Dec. 28 in Atlanta.

Oregon athletic director and selection committee chairman Rob Mullens told ESPN’s Rece Davis on Sunday the only discussion about the top three Playoff spot was what order the three undefeated teams should be in. The committee did talk about both Oklahoma and Georgia for the fourth spot, he said.

“In the end,” said Mullens, and cited in an article by Jenni Carlson in The (Oklahoma City) Oklahoman, “it was a solid Oklahoma selection for the No. 4 spot.”

Oklahoma’s No 4 ranking in the final College Football Playoff rankings is as high as the Sooners have been all season in any of the major national polls. OU was as high as fourth in the Coaches Poll early in the season, but never was higher than fifth in the Associated Press Poll.

When the first installment of this season’s CFP rankings was announced on Nov. 5, the Sooners were at No. 9 with a 7-1 record, and a week later they had dropped to 10th, with six teams directly ahead of them in the battle for the top four: Alabama at No. 5, followed in order by Oregon, Utah, Minnesota and Penn State.

It was not out of the realm of possibility that Oklahoma could get back in the Playoff hunt, but with six teams in front of them, the Sooners were definitely on life support, with no margin for error the rest of the way, and needed a giant tsunami to get back in the race.

And the Sooners got their wish, beginning In Week 11, when No. 9 Minnesota lost to Iowa. In the aftermath, Oklahoma jiumped Minnesota in the rankings.

Two week later, No. 6 Oregon lost unexpectedly at Arizona State, dropping all the way down to 14th.That same weekend, No. 8 Penn State lost to No. 2 Ohio State. The result was OU moving up two sports, to No. 7, in the Playoff rankings. Alabama and Utah remained in front of the Sooners, however.

Chaos reared its ugly head once more in favor of Oklahoma, when Auburn bested No. 5 Alabama in the annual Iron Bowl rivalry in Week 14. Now the Sooners were all the way up to No. 6, but still behind Utah.

That brings us up to last weekend, when the final two pieces fell in place for OU: a win over Baylor in the Big 12 title game and the upset win by Oregon over Utah in the Pac-12 Championship.

Welcome Playoff regular Oklahoma to its third consecutive College Football Playoff and fourth in five seasons. Only Alabama and Clemson, with five appearances each, have been there more than the Sooners.

Oklahoma is the only team from the Big 12 to ever make the Playoff.

A No. 10 ranking is not the farthest back the Sooners have had to climb to make the Playoff. They were 15th when the initial CFP rankings came out in 2015, when OU made the Playoff for the first time. But Oklahoma has never been more than one spot back of fourth the week before the final rankings were announced.