Conference Championship Saturday Recap

By Djack

Big 12 Championship: Oklahoma State 10 vs Oklahoma 9
A battle of the forgotten power 5 conference, while every other conference championship game has CFP implications, the Big 12 didn't due to the lack of quality teams in the conference. Formerly one of the most dominating conferences in college football, is now a thing of the past with programs like Texas, TCU, and Baylor all falling off. Regardless of the state of the conference, their was still a conference champion to be crowned, and it'd be the battle of Oklahoma to decide the Big 12 Championship.

Oklahoma may have played their best game of the season yesterday, Baker Mayfield was a mad men with a legendary handlebar mustache, which he should keep by the way since he lit it up. Mayfield had 4 completions over 20 yards in the first half, two of them went for 65+ yards, and he didn't turn the ball over at all. Mayfield was running around looking like Derek Carr with the energy he was showing on the field, throwing touchdowns, and then doing the patented Lebron chest pound, pure savagery. Oklahoma State wouldn't go away though, they'd actually take a 17-10 lead in the second quarter, but it wouldn't last long as Oklahoma tied the game up before halftime. Going into half with a tie game after how well Oklahoma's offense played was a huge plus for OKST. Unfortunately for OKST, it wouldn't translate to the second half, the second half was all Oklahoma, they took a different approach in the second half offensively, and it paid of big time. Although they were lighting it up through the air, the Sooners decided to cut back on the aerial assault, and start the ground impound. This turned out to be a genius decision, not only because Samaje Perine is an absolute tank, but it wore out the opposing defense, and kept the OKST offense off the field. Oklahoma was playing defense with their offense by keeping the other teams offense off the field, pure brilliance. The second half was all Sooners, they outscored OKST 21-3 in the second half going on to win the BIG 12 Championship 38-20. Baker Mayfield also announced after the game he will be returning to Oklahoma for his Senior season, this puts Oklahoma in the discussion for potential playoff contenders next year, and if he plays like he did in the first half of this game next season, this team has a chance to be special. 

SEC Championship: Florida 15 vs Alabama 1
Either the SEC is the most overrated conference in college football or the Alabama Crimson Tide are just that good. We'll have to wait until the playoff to find that out, but last night's SEC championship game was not pretty to say the least.

Gators jumped out to a 7-0 lead early in this one, their only lead of the game, but still the defense was dominating Alabama's offense, and it looked like we might actually see a competitive game. Boy was that misleading, Alabama's defense and special teams decided it didn't matter if the offense couldn't score because they would do it for them. Alabama got a pick six and returned a blocked punt for a touchdown, jumping out to a 16-9 lead after the Gators blocked the extra point try returning it for 2 points. Alabama started to pull away after that, they went up 33-9, then the Gators scored right before the half to make it 33-16 at halftime. Alabama had a comfortable lead, but Florida was still within striking distance. The game ended in the third quarter when Florida was stuffed on an absolute savage goalline stand from the Albama defense. After that it was literally all Alabama, the Gators seemed to lose all hope of winning the game after that, and I can't blame them they were just physically outmatched, nothing the could do about it. Bama went on to win 54-16, winning the SEC championship in a blowout.

Bama is now 13-0, they can be the first power 5 team ever to go 15-0 if they are to win it all. This is the most dominate Saban coached Bama team I've ever seen. As much as I want to believe another team can beat Bama, I just don't see anyone giving them a real test, but I really hope I'm wrong. Sick of seeing miserable Saban lift the trophy every year, if he were to lose he wouldn't sleep for a month straight, especially if Urban Meyers, and the Buckeyes knocked em out again.

ACC Championship: Virginia Tech 23 vs Clemson 3
The Deshaun Watson show was in full effect last night, if it wasn't for him this Clemson team would be a joke, and not even in this ACC championship to begin with. Clemson needed to win this game to essentially secure their spot into the CFP, even though they don't deserve to get in, but that's a discussion for a different article. Watson was in full win mode last night, for a majority of this season he didn't run nearly as much as he did last season, I think that's because he fears injury, and he wants to showcase himself as a pocket passer for NFL teams. Last night, we saw the Deshaun Watson of last year, he ran the ball 17 times, and he was also lighting it up through the air. He had 373 yards of total offense, 5 total touchdowns, although he did throw an interception. Clemson seemed to be in cruise control for most of this game, they'd pull away with ease, but then the defense would allowed Virginia Tech right back in the game. Clemson led from start to finish, but it's another unimpressive win from an unimpressive team, they're just lucky Deshaun Watson is there to cover up all this teams flaws. Clemson wins the ACC championship 42-35 and will most likely be advancing to the CFP, even though they don't deserve to.

BIG 10 Championship: Penn State 7 vs Wisconsin 6
My worst nightmare occured last night, Penn State needed to win the BIG 10 in order for them to have a legitimate case to say they deserve to get into the CFP. The thing is all the other teams won their conference championships as well, except one, Ohio State. I didn't want to leave it up to this brainless committee to decide, so I was pulling hard for Wisconsin to win this game.

Wisconsin got off to an amazing start, they marched down the field on offense scoring on their opening drive. That was followed up by a 67 yard touchdown run and just like that Wisconsin was up 14-0. The Penn State offense was not prepared for the Wisconsin defense judging by their 2 awful offensive possesions to start the game. I was already claiming Wisconsin BIG 10 champs and was hyped that Ohio State was going to be a shoe in for the CFP. Penn State scored making it 14-7, but then Wisconsin began to blow the doors off again going up 28-7. TJ Watt had just gotten a strip sack and recovered it, so this game looked all but over, Wisconsin was dominating, and Penn State was not ready to reciprocate the energy Wisconsin brought to the field. Penn State would close the gap before half making it 28-14, but everyone knew Wisconsin had this game in the bag. Damn, everyone was so so so wrong, Trace McSorley took every Wisconsin fans soul in the second half, this kid was the only one who came to play for Penn State in the first half, and he also came to play in the second half, except this time he brought the rest of his troops back out with some serious energy. Penn State would come out of the half score on a 70 yard touchdown pass, followed up by another touchdown drive, and the game was now tied up 28-28. Wisconsin would kick a field goal the score was now 31-28 Wisconsin goinh into the fourth. Fourth quarter was owned by Penn State they'd score early in the third quarter to take a 35-31 lead that they wouldn't give back. They'd get a field goal later in the quarter to make it a 7 point game. Wisconsin had the ball and was driving late, they were looking to send this game to overtime, but first they needed to convert a 4th and 1 first. The Wisconsin running back gets stuffed by the Penn State defense and now all chaos breaks loose.

Why couldn't Wisconsin make things easy and beat Penn State, now the committee is going to break someone's heart, and it better not be mine. I'm going to be enraged with an uncontrable amount of fury if #2 Ohio State gets jumped by #7 Penn State, that'd be absolutely ridiculous, and would ruin all credibility that the CFP polls have before the actual selection Sunday. Ohio State has played the toughest schedule of teams with a loss that are still in the running, so they should clearly get in. We lost to Penn State on a special teams play, if we get left out because of that, this system is worse than the last one and I officially quit watching college football. Expand to 8 teams and we never have this problem again, time to get this right for the fans.