No controversy with Tigers being in the CFP
By: will-vandervort December 7, 2016

Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney is glad to be one of the four teams that have been selected to play in the College Football Playoff. His Tigers, the No. 2 seed, will face No. 3 Ohio State in one of the two semifinal games at the Fiesta Bowl.

Top-ranked Alabama will play No. 4 Washington in the Peach Bowl. Both games will be played on New Year’s Eve and will be broadcast on ESPN.

There was no question Clemson was going to be in the CFP as long as it beat Virginia Tech in the ACC Championship Game, which it did. The same went for Alabama.

However, there were questions regarding Ohio State and Washington. Though the Huskies won the Pac 12 Championship and had just one loss, some questioned there non-conference schedule and wondered if they did enough to deserve inclusion.

The Buckeyes’ situation was even more controversial. Though they lost just one game in the regular season, that loss came to Penn State, who finished fifth in the final rankings. The Nittany Lions went on to win the division title and then came back from 21-points down in the Big Ten Championship Game to beat then No. 6 Wisconsin.

Some thought Penn State deserved to get in over Ohio State, despite having two losses, including a 39-point loss on the road at Michigan, a team the Buckeyes beat in Columbus on the last day of the regular season. In the end, the Buckeyes got in, and Swinney says that’s the only thing he can worry about.

“We can all sit around and debate on that stuff all day long, but at this point, it really does not matter what I think. I’m sure a lot of people have different opinions,” he said. “There are five or six very deserving teams. They selected these four and all that matters to me was that we were one of them. Now we have to get this team ready and we have to go and compete.”

Clemson will begin practice on Monday for the Buckeyes, a team it beat back in the 2014 Orange Bowl. As for those who did not make it into the CFP, Swinney says the only people that can answer those questions are the folks on the committee that picked the final four teams.

NCAA President Mark Emmert said on Wednesday he would like to see an eight-team playoff so a situation like this does not come up again.

As for Swinney and the Tigers, they can’t worry about any of that. They have to first worry about Ohio State and trying to advance to the national championship game.

“Your heart breaks for a couple of those teams that did not have an opportunity, and you will have to ask the committee what their reasons were on a couple of things,” he said. “For us, I think it is four great teams and four teams that are very capable of winning the national championship. There is no doubt about it, and we are glad we are one of them.”