The first ever 12-team College Football Playoff bracket is here. After a thrilling conference championship weekend, we came into Selection Sunday with one massive question: would SMU or Alabama take home the final spot in the bracket?
We now have our answer.
Official 12-team College Football Playoff bracket
Here's the bracket for the first ever 12-team playoff. Oregon, Georgia, Boise State, and Arizona State are seeded 1-4 and earned first round byes in the field.
College Football Playoff bracket thoughts? pic.twitter.com/FUOkNEornj
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Clemson took the final auto-bid, coming in as the 12-seed. "Big 2" championship game losers Texas and Penn State only fell slightly, going to #5 and #6. Notre Dame, Ohio State, Tennessee, and Indiana were 7-10, and in the biggest debate of the day, SMU took the final at-large spot at #11, holding off Alabama.
Takeaways from the 12-team College Football Playoff bracket reveal
Now that we've seen the first ever 12-team playoff field, what are the main points to takeaway?
Losing competitively in the conference championship game doesn't hurt you
The biggest question by far was whether or not SMU would be punished for losing 34-31 on a walk-off bomb field goal to Clemson in the ACC title game. They were not. Being an 11-win power conference team that didn't suffer a bad loss still got them in. And then there's Texas and Penn State. After losing in their conference title games, they only fell to the #5 and #6 seeds.
If you look at their total resumes, it's hard to argue Texas and Penn State as being ahead of the likes of Notre Dame, Ohio State, Tennessee, and even Indiana. But they were ahead entering this weekend based on perceived strength and maintained that following close title game losses. The committee chose to not let conference championship game results hurt teams, which considering the ramifications on the future of championship games if they had, it's understandable.
Bad losses matter
In the SMU vs Alabama debate, a huge part of the conversation was whether Alabama's schedule strength and good wins outweighed the bad losses they took enough to jump an SMU team that didn't have the same quality of wins. Along with the first takeaway about not being punished for conference championship games, it's clear that owning bad losses matters significantly. Losing to 6-6 Vanderbilt and Oklahoma squads on the way to a 9-3 record was too much to overlook when it came to the Tide.
Positioning entering conference championship weekend matters
Going into conference championship weekend, Boise State was ranked several spots ahead of Arizona State who ranked a few spots ahead of Clemson. All three teams won, but there was some conversation if ASU's dominance of Iowa State or Clemson beating a previously Top 10 SMU team would cause some shuffling, which would impact which teams got first round byes. It did not. That order held, and that suggests that your positioning going into the final weekend does matter, something that hasn't always been the case.