College Football Playoffs Preview 2018

The playoff this year does not seem to be able to produce much excitement in terms of who's going to win.  The program all year has said Bama was the best team, and the odds predictor now gives credence to that.  Bama has a 63% chance overall to win the title now, the highest I've seen it while looking at these games.

This of course doesn't mean that there wont be exciting moments.  The Sooners and Crimson Tide both meet with the two top scoring offenses in College Football this year.  Both teams are lead by exciting young signal callers, and both can make games a shoot out.  The Sooners have needed that this year, as their defense has been lacking, ranking 108th in yards surrendered per game.  Its this disparity that gives the Tide an 88% chance to win the game. The Sooners will have to find a way to be better at limiting big pays, after ranking near dead last in allowing 209 plays of 10 or more yards this past season.  The Tide were pretty adept at pulling these plays off, picking up 254 of their own big chunks.  This game is going to come down to OU's offense being able to match play for play and getting the ball last. 

On the other side of the bracket Notre Dame and Clemson match up in a battle of a air of QBs that won their jobs after some controversy.  The Irish had Ian Book step onto the field against Wake Forest and complete reinvigorate that offense.  It ended up being the right choice, as Book completed 70% of his passes and leading the tam to score 30 or more in six of his nine starts.  A large part of that success was the Irish limiting their QBs getting hit, allowing 19 sacks this season  That will be tested heavily against this Clemson front, that compiled 46 sacks.  Clelin Ferrel lead the team with 10.5 this year, while he and two other players also had 7 more hurries to the total.  The Tigers defense was impressive all year, allowing just South Carolina to hit that 30 point mark.  Trevor Lawrence was able to win the starting QB job and never looked back, tossing 24 TDs to just 4 Ints.  This game the program projects a bit closer, giving it as a 68-32% Clemson to ND chance to win.

This playoffs looks to go pretty chalk, with Clemson and Alabama likely to advance.  Both though need to take care, because the Sooners and the Irish have the explosive ability to turn every game into a shootout.