{"id":69870,"date":"2024-12-08T12:55:52","date_gmt":"2024-12-08T17:55:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=69870"},"modified":"2025-09-20T14:33:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T18:33:15","slug":"first-12-team-cfp-led-by-top-seed-oregon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2024\/12\/08\/first-12-team-cfp-led-by-top-seed-oregon\/","title":{"rendered":"First 12-Team CFP Led By Top Seed Oregon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now that the nine conference champions have been crowned, it’s time to turn our focus on the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff. All season, the Big Ten had been regarded as one of, if not the top conference in college football. Now that the final rankings are out, there is no denying the fact that at least heading into the CFP, the Big Ten is well-situated to win another title.<\/p>\n

All of the talk is over. “What ifs” and resume comparisons will flood the social media spaces in the wake of the first 12-team CFP selection. Regardless, the field is set. The Big Ten expanded to 18 teams this season and one of the new programs ran the table and won the Big Ten Championship. Oregon, Ohio State, Penn State, and Indiana – yes, Indiana – have made the CFP. The Big Ten’s four participants are the most in the country, followed by three from the SEC, two from the ACC, one from the Big 12, one from the Mountain West, and one Independent.<\/p>\n

First 12-Team CFP Led By Top Seed Oregon<\/h2>\n

Oregon Earns Top Seed and Bye<\/h3>\n

It has been a magical season for the Ducks. In a year where all four Power 4 conferences had a new member in the conference championship game, Oregon joined Arizona State as the only team to win in the new homes.<\/p>\n

Oregon passed every test this year and finished with three wins over the current field. The win over Boise State aged better and better with each passing week. The Ducks put the nation on notice with the narrow win over Ohio State. Then, Oregon took care of business in a high-scoring affair with Penn State<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Potential Heisman Trophy finalist Dillon Gabriel has been superb for the Ducks all year. In the Big Ten title game, he was methodical, and efficient, and did everything the Oregon offense needed from its star quarterback.<\/p>\n

The Ducks will sit and wait to see who they play next. As the top seed, Oregon will face the winner of eighth-seeded Ohio State and ninth-seeded Tennessee.<\/p>\n

Penn State Earns Sixth Seed, Will Play SMU at Home<\/h3>\n

Something is going to have to give to Penn State and James Franklin. The Nittany Lions have been historically inept at winning big games and with one big regular season game and the Big Ten Championship, PSU went winless.<\/p>\n

It’s going to be cold at Beaver Stadium for the first round of the playoffs. Running the ball and playing defense will be the keys to victory. The good news for Penn State is that they are pretty good at both! Kaytron Allen and Nicholas Singleton have continued to be one of the top running back duos in the country. The one-two punch has combined for 1,660 yards and 13 touchdowns the year. In two games, both Allen and Singleton amassed at least 100 yards.<\/p>\n

Defensively, perhaps the best defender in all of college football will lead the way. Abdul Carter is everywhere and is up for a plethora of individual awards to be presented next week.<\/p>\n

Nothing that happened before has anything to do with what’s about to happen. Penn State gets to play host to the ACC runner-up, SMU. The Nittany Lions own a 1-0-1 record. The two haven’t faced off since 1978 when Penn State won at home, 26-21.<\/p>\n

Ohio State Earns Eighth Seed, Will Play Tennessee at Home<\/h3>\n

To say this season was all over the place for the Buckeyes would be an understatement. On one hand, Ohio State has two wins over CFP teams and a one-point loss on the road at the top-ranked team. On the other, it lost to the worst Michigan team fielded in over a decade quarterbacked by a future insurance salesman.<\/p>\n

Ohio State’s season has a gray cloud hovering over it due to that loss to Michigan. While Ross Bjork, the new Ohio State Athletic Director, gave Ryan Day a vote of confidence, fans are lining up to get him out of Columbus. So now, the Buckeyes have the opportunity to put those calls on the back burner. Unless Day delivers a National Championship, those rumblings will remain.<\/p>\n

The Buckeyes finished the regular season with the best-scoring defense and best total defense. It had the second-best passing defense and sixth-best rushing defense as well. And yet, here the Buckeyes are with two losses. Ohio State showed it can be explosive on offense but that explosivity has been missing of late.<\/p>\n

This matchup against Tennessee is the second in history. Tennessee took the only matchup between these two in the 1996 Citrus Bowl, 20-14. The narratives of Ryan Day and John Cooper will be interesting considering the 1996 Citrus Bowl was after Michigan ended a National Championship-worthy season. Parallels will be everywhere.<\/p>\n

Indiana Earns 11 Seed, Will Play Notre Dame on the Road<\/h3>\n

Indiana’s season has been magical. Despite a thorough beating at Ohio State, Indiana took care of business the rest of the way and locked down the final at-large bid in this year’s CFP. For the first time in program history, the Hoosiers won double-digit games and finished with 11, two more than the previous record.<\/p>\n

Curt Cignetti has already injected serious hope and belief into the Indiana program. Kurtis Rourke transferred in from Ohio and put together one of the greatest seasons from a Hoosier quarterback. Defensively, some James Madison transfers who followed Cignetti led the way for the best-rushing defense, second-best total defense, and seventh-best scoring defense.<\/p>\n

Just getting to the CFP is a win for Cignetti. Now, the objective is to shock the world and advance. When kickoff comes around, Vegas is going to be sitting on a lot of bets against the Hoosiers. A trip to Notre Dame, Indiana can make some noise. This is the 30th time the Hoosiers have faced Notre Dame and the Irish own a 23-5-1 record. Indiana has only ever won once in South Bend: 1898.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"It's
Photo courtesy: Grace Hollars\/IndyStar \/ USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images<\/p>\n

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It’s not a CFP without the Big Ten. This year, the field expanded to 12 and four of the final teams come from the Big Ten Conference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4051,"featured_media":69930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7361,2,17,35610],"tags":[7983,5144,641,73,277,309,3348],"class_list":["post-69870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bigten","category-bowl-games","category-featured","category-news","category-penn-state-nittany-lions","tag-big-ten-football","tag-curt-cignetti","tag-indiana-hoosiers","tag-ohio-state-buckeyes","tag-oregon-ducks","tag-penn-state-nittany-lions","tag-ryan-day"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4051"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69870"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69932,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69870\/revisions\/69932"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}