And now, 20 Final Thoughts from Championship Weekend, a celebration of kickers and backup quarterbacks.

1. A college football selection day unlike any before is upon us. There will be griping. There will be grief. There will be questionable seedings and logical inconsistencies from the committee. But first, take a minute and soak this thing in.

Two weekends from now, we are going to watch December college football in South Bend and State College. There will be a month of win-or-go-home drama involving not just Georgia and Ohio State but also Boise State and Arizona State.

Yes, folks. It is on.

2. Last year in this same column, I explained in painstaking detail why I believed the committee would not pass on 13-0 Florida State. Not making that mistake again. No definitive predictions here.

No. 17 Clemson’s (10-3) dramatic 34-31 ACC Championship Game victory over No. 8 SMU (11-2) means the final at-large spot will likely come down to the Mustangs and current No. 11 team Alabama (9-3). The ramifications of that decision could be massive. If the committee drops SMU four spots and out of the field for losing on a walk-off 56-yard field goal by Clemson’s Nolan Hauser, the conferences might as well abolish their championship games. But the same exact rationale chairman Warde Manuel cited Tuesday for elevating 9-3 Alabama over another ACC team, 10-2 Miami, applies to Bama and SMU. The Tide have three Top 25 wins. The Mustangs have zero.

It would be a terrible message to send that playing and losing a 13th game is more damaging than losing 24-3 at Oklahoma. And absolutely nobody would be surprised by it.

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3. The stakes are less drastic for the SEC (Texas) and Big Ten (Penn State) runners-up, but seeding matters in a tournament. Is the committee going to move No. 4 Notre Dame (11-1), coming off its annual conference championship bye week, above the second-ranked Longhorns and third-ranked Nittany Lions? If they do, it could mean the Irish open against a three-loss opponent (Clemson or Alabama), with a chance to advance and play the fourth-highest ranked conference champ, either Boise State (12-1) or Arizona State (11-2). That’s a heck of a draw.

Meanwhile, Penn State (11-2) could fall as low as the No. 8 seed, mostly because both the Nittany Lions and Ohio State (10-2) both now have two losses, and Penn State lost to the Buckeyes at home. In which case it would host a toss-up 8-9 game, likely against Tennessee (10-2). That would be a steep price to pay for losing by a touchdown on a neutral field to the No. 1 team in the country.

4. In a season defined by parity across the sport, the Oregon Ducks (13-0) refused to be upset by anyone. They earned a No. 1 seed and a trip to Pasadena for the Rose Bowl quarterfinal with their breakneck 45-37 win over No. 3 Penn State (11-2) in the Big Ten Championship Game. Against Ohio State in Week 7 and again Saturday in Indianapolis, quarterback Dillon Gabriel (22 of 32 for 283 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions) seemingly made every big throw, many of them to his go-to guy, Tez Johnson. The star receiver, who missed much of November, caught 11 balls on 12 targets for 181 yards and a TD.

Oregon’s offense looked as scary as it has all season — and that’s saying something. And now the Ducks have until Jan. 1 for everyone to get healthy.

5. It was not, however, the finest performance for Oregon’s defense, which allowed the Nittany Lions to rack up 292 yards on the ground. Penn State nearly came back from an early 28-10 deficit, but Drew Allar’s second interception of the night, into the hands of Nikko Reed, wrapped up Dan Lanning’s first conference title. We’ve become accustomed to seeing Oregon’s defensive linemen live in opponents’ backfields, but they couldn’t quite get there fast enough at times. Whoever draws Oregon first in the Playoff will study that tape closely.

Still, that feels like nitpicking. The Ducks will enter the postseason with fewer questions than anyone else in the field. They earned the right to be considered the favorites.

6. Penn State’s James Franklin fell to 1-14 against top-five opponents — yikes — but at least this time his offense showed off some long-missing explosiveness. The Nittany Lions averaged more yards per play (7.0) than Oregon (6.2) and had eight plays of 20-plus yards. Running backs Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen looked as fast as they ever have in their three seasons in Happy Valley. And of course, do-everything tight end Tyler Warren (seven catches, 84 yards) did his part as well. Presumably Penn State will be no lower than the No. 8 seed and thus host a first-round game. Perhaps even a night game?

7. No. 5 Georgia’s (11-2) journey to its third SEC championship under Kirby Smart was an adventure of the highest magnitude. There was the 28-point comeback at Alabama this season, only to give up a long Ryan Williams touchdown, and a 28-10 butt-kicking at Ole Miss. There was the 13-12 escape at Kentucky and eight overtimes against Georgia Tech. At one point, the Bulldogs were missing four injured running backs. So of course, they would have to play the second half and overtime of the SEC championship with a backup quarterback, Gunner Stockton, after Carson Beck suffered an “upper extremity” injury on a sack. Stockton even threw an unforced interception with 2:30 left in regulation just to make things more interesting.

But man, that defense. The Dawgs’ 22-19 overtime win over No. 2 Texas (11-2) featured six sacks, three forced turnovers and a staggering 15 tackles for loss. Georgia allowed just three combined touchdowns between this game and its 30-15 win in Austin on Oct. 19, while notching 13 sacks and allowing just 60 combined rushing yards. Running back Trevor Etienne (16 carries, 94 yards, two touchdowns) ate up tacklers in his return after missing three weeks.

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8. As underwhelming as Georgia was for much of the season, I still would not want to play the Dawgs in this tournament. Especially now that Beck and his teammates will have 25 days to heal before the Sugar Bowl. Smart is 53-4 over the past four seasons, with two national titles. His team will be prepared.

Also: Georgia’s season was a roller coaster in large part because it played a murderous schedule, featuring six games against opponents that will finish in the committee’s top 15 (Clemson, Alabama, Ole Miss, Tennessee and Texas twice). Only one of those, Tennessee, was at home. There will be several teams in the 12-team field that played two or fewer top-15 opponents.

And one of them is Texas.

9. Steve Sarkisian’s team has spent the entire season ranked in the top five of the polls/committee rankings. And it very nearly won the SEC in its first season in the league. But the Longhorns finished the season having won no games against teams in the committee’s most recent Top 25. (Texas A&M was No. 20 but dropped out after Texas beat the Aggies.) Texas’ defense is one of the best in the country, but its offense scored 20, 17 and 19 points in three of its past four games. Quinn Ewers had three of his four lowest passer ratings of the season in those games.

And yet, Texas will likely be either the No. 5 or No. 6 seed, getting a home game and a favorable draw. That may say more about the field than the Horns.

10. It would certainly be something if it turns out Dabo Swinney did in Alabama again. In a mild surprise, No. 17 Clemson (10-3) won its eighth ACC championship in the last 10 seasons with a heart-stopping 34-31 win over SMU. Clemson dominated the first three quarters, building a 31-14 lead, only to watch Mustangs star Kevin Jennings lead a 79-yard touchdown drive to tie the score with 16 seconds remaining. Overtime, right?

Wrong. After Adam Randall’s 41-yard kickoff return and a 17-yard Cade Klubnik completion, Swinney sent out kicker Hauser to try a 56-yard field goal. Which he drilled, sending Clemson back to the CFP for the first time since 2020. It’s assuredly some vindication for Swinney, who knows exactly what the critics say about him and his defiance of transfer portal trends. But this is the same team that lost to 9-3 rival South Carolina at home a week ago. Good. Improving. But hardly 2015-20-level Clemson.

11. If the committee truly began each week with “a blank sheet of paper,” newly crowned Big 12 champ Arizona State (11-2) would be the no-brainer No. 3 seed. As it is, the Sun Devils seem unlikely to overtake No. 10 Boise State (12-1) despite walloping No. 16 Iowa State (10-3) 45-19 at Jerry World.

Kenny Dillingham’s team won six straight games after an Oct. 19 loss at Cincinnati (5-7) when it was missing quarterback Sam Leavitt, and it saved the most impressive performance yet for its biggest game to date. Running back Cam Skattebo (16 carries for 170 yards, two catches for 38 yards, three touchdowns) has been the heart and soul of the Sun Devils’ first outright conference championship team since 1996.

12. At the time the game ended, it looked like Arizona State might not get a first-round bye at all. It needed Clemson to beat SMU. But even now, the difference between being the No. 3 or 4 seed could be particularly significant for the Sun Devils. That’s because the committee will assign those seeds to quarterfinal sites based on geography, so whoever is higher between Arizona State and Boise will likely get placed in the Fiesta Bowl. That would be a de facto home game for the Sun Devils.

If the Broncos go there instead, ASU will go be a “host” in Atlanta. While Georgia plays in New Orleans. This thing is going to take some getting used to.

13. I have long wished the Heisman folks would allow more time before the ballots are due on Monday afternoon, but you could give me six weeks and I’d still struggle to decide between Colorado’s Travis Hunter and Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty. Both were incredible, but only one played over the weekend. And all Jeanty did was break a 75-yard touchdown run and post his sixth 200-yard game of the season in the Broncos’ 21-7 win over UNLV in Friday’s Mountain West Championship Game.

Jeanty ran for more yards before a bowl game — 2,497 — than any FBS running back but Barry Sanders (2,628), whose 1988 season is considered untouchable. Yes, Jeanty played in two more games than Sanders, but he has had the exact same number of carries (344) as Sanders did in ’88.

Hunter will likely win, but I hope voters at least waited until after the weekend to cast their ballots and gave all the contenders — including Skattebo — a fair shot.

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14. No. 25 Army (11-1) winning the AAC championship in its first year in the conference is a truly remarkable feat given both the strength of that league and just how much so many aspects of the sport have stacked up against the service academies in recent years. No NIL, no portal, no problem for Jeff Monken, whose Black Knights rolled past Tulane (9-4) 35-14 on Friday.

Monken, who is 70-55 in 11 seasons at West Point, was already Army’s winningest coach since the great Red Blaik (121-33) from 1941 to ’58, but quarterback Bryson Daily (1,480 rushing yards, 877 passing) has led the Black Knights to their best season since the 2018 team that went 11-2 and took Kyler Murray-led Oklahoma to overtime. But of course, Army’s biggest game of the season isn’t until next week against Navy (8-3).

15. A previously uneventful coaching carousel took quite the turn Saturday when UCF decided to turn back the clock to 2017 and welcomed back old friend Scott Frost. The Knights’ former “national championship” coach has barely been heard from in the two years since his 16-31 tenure at Nebraska mercifully came to an end, but in April he told CBS Sports he was “dying to get back in” to coaching. In September he quietly joined Sean McVay’s Rams staff as a senior analyst. UCF, which reportedly talked with USC’s Lincoln Riley as well, was clearly looking to make a splash. Much has changed since Frost’s undefeated 2017 season at UCF, including the school joining the Big 12. We’ll see if he can recreate some of that McKenzie Milton/Shaquem Griffin magic.

16. If not for a disastrous three-year detour at Michigan, Rich Rodriguez would likely be viewed as one of the best coaches in the sport. The spread-option pioneer led West Virginia to three straight top-10 seasons, took Arizona to a Pac-12 Championship Game and now has led Jacksonville State (9-4) to a Conference USA title in just the program’s second season in the FBS. The Gamecocks’ 52-12 rout of Western Kentucky (9-4) was a vintage RichRod production, with Jax State rushing for 386 yards while passing for 176.

Perhaps the 61-year-old will get one more bite at the Power 4 apple. Perhaps there will soon be an even wilder school-coach reunion in the Big 12.

17. At long last, Ohio (10-3) is a MAC champion again. The Bobcats channeled 56 years and five conference championship game losses’ worth of frustration to hammer rival Miami of Ohio 38-3. Ohio has been one of the nation’s steadiest G5 programs over the past two decades, but Tim Albin, who succeeded Frank Solich in 2021, took the program to another level. The Bobcats have posted double-digit wins in three straight seasons, even after all-conference quarterback Kurtis Rourke transferred to Indiana (where he has excelled).

Albin, a former Solich assistant dating to Nebraska, spent 20 seasons in Athens, but Charlotte hired him away within hours of the game ending. Such is life in the MAC.

18. Marshall (10-3) may also lose its championship-winning coach, but under much different circumstances. Fourth-year coach Charles Huff has long been locked in a standoff with his administration, which has not yet offered him a contract beyond this season. In the meantime, he went ahead and led the Thundering Herd to the Sun Belt championship, winning 31-3 at Louisiana (10-3) for their seventh straight win. It’s the program’s first conference title since winning Conference USA in 2014. Huff has been linked with the open job at fellow Sun Belt school Southern Miss, which finished 1-11 this season. Bizarre all around.

19. While our focus Sunday will be primarily on the Playoff, I’m curious to see how fans of the other 70 bowl-eligible teams react to the announcements of the other bowl matchups. The main reason it took 80 years or so for the sport’s leaders to finally stage a full-fledged tournament was out of deference to bowl games, which, for all their quirks, have provided no shortage of memorable experiences for countless coaches, players and fans. They’re still here, obviously, but it’s going to be interesting to see how they’re viewed in this new landscape.

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20. ESPN’s Joe Tessitore made an excellent point during his call of the Big 12 title game. Were this a year ago, a star like Arizona State’s Skattebo would undoubtedly opt out of whichever New Year’s Six bowl the Sun Devils played in. Instead, we’re going to see more of him. And Jeanty. And all those Ohio State guys. It makes you realize how anticlimactic the postseason had become outside of the two semifinal bowls and the national championship.

Not anymore.

(Photo: Grant Halverson / Getty Images)