Bama Hammer Staff College Football Playoff Prediction
Which four teams will be in the College Football Playoff at the end of the season? We’re glad you asked.
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College football fans were treated to an appetizer last Friday evening when Cal and Hawaii squared off in Australia to officially kick off the 2016 season.
The whole meal will finally be provided starting this Thursday when Tennessee and Appalachian State line up. Congratulations, we all made it through another college football offseason!
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New seasons bring with them new hope and expectations. Some programs have expectations of making the College Football Playoff this year. The writers at Bama Hammer have put together our prediction of who will make it to the 3rd rendition of College Football’s final four.
The method of selecting our teams who will be in the Fiesta and Peach Bowls was pretty straight forward. A team receiving a first place vote received four points, second place was three points, third place two points and those coming in fourth received one vote. There was a pretty wide variety in teams selected one through four by all of us at Bama Hammer so we have included the whole list of teams receiving votes that didn’t make the final cut as well.
Without further ado, the definitive final College Football Playoff top four will be –
- Alabama
- Clemson
- Oklahoma
- Ohio State
Others receiving votes were Michigan, Tennessee, LSU, Notre Dame, Arkansas, Florida State, Oklahoma State, and Southern California.
It should come as no surprise that Alabama tops this list. For one, we are an Alabama site (pretty obvious). Also, Bama is the consensus number one in every preseason poll that has been released and was by a fairly wide margin in the AP Poll. Alabama is the heavy favorite to repeat as National Champions in 2016.
Clemson, Oklahoma, and Ohio State have been receiving significant love to make it to the playoff from prognosticators as well.
Clemson returns arguably the best overall player in the country at quarterback in Deshaun Watson and plenty of other offensive weapons like wide receivers Mike Williams and Hunter Renfrow. The Clemson offense should have plenty of punch. Our staff believes Clemson makes it out of the ACC ahead of Florida State.
Oklahoma is the favorite out of the Big12 and many expect them to make it back to back playoff appearances. They return former Texas Tech walk-on star quarterback Baker Mayfield and stud running back Samaje Perine. Unfortunately for OU they lost several big time playmakers on the defense. The Big12 is wide open and teams like TCU and Oklahoma State will compete for that conference title as well. Our staff likes the Sooners to survive.
Finally, the BH staff believes the inaugural College Football Playoff champion Ohio State Buckeyes will return after coming up one game short last season. Ohio State loses a ton on both sides of the ball returning only 6 starters total. However, OSU much like Alabama, has the talent to simply reload at positions of need. They also return star dual threat QB J.T. Barrett who is likely good enough to make up for any early season struggles by the rest of the Buckeyes. Michigan is likely to make a push for the Big10 title, but we think the Buckeyes are too good to miss the Playoff in back to back years.
We expect some of our “dark horse” picks to make significant noise as well this season. While programs like Florida State and Michigan are expected to be in the hunt up until the very end, other programs like Southern Cal and Oklahoma State are receiving little to no playoff love. Each team left just outside of our top four has the talent to make a serious run at a playoff spot if things go their way.
Next: 5 Reasons the Crimson Tide Wins It All This Year
College football is finally back! In just a few short months the College Football Playoff Committee will release its first rankings of the season. We’ll see where our staff prediction ranks and whether we’re geniuses or full of it.