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College Football: AT&T National Championship Game Odds And Prediction

ByMike Marteny|

Well, this is it. The final game of the college football season is upon us. This is always a sad time for me. It will be especially so this season since I fell so far short of my goal in the picks against the spread. I will get to the final season tally after the conclusion of this game. Forget the Rose Bowl, this is the Grandaddy of them all! The first playoff Championship game!

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TCU certainly made a statment with their thrashing of Ole Miss, the team that beat Alabama. One could argue that TCU would have beaten Alabama like Ohio State did. If the Horned Frogs were in this game, it would practically be a home game for them. You could almost walk from their Fort Worth campus to Jerry World. Clearly, there are still some things to be worked out as the playoff moves forward.

That said, the Big Ten(14) quashed all talk of them being the worst of the power five conferences. They only had one team that got embarrassed (Iowa), and they won five games in which they were underdogs. By contrast, the Big 12 went 2-5 in bowl games. The SEC, particularly the West, got embarrassed for the most part. How can you argue that Ohio State did not belong after their conference performed well, and they beat Alabama, who was the number one seed. I think they have earned their place.

That is not to say that TCU didn’t deserve a shot. The only team that really got embarrassed out of the top four was Florida State. Was it a product of their opponent? I guess we will find out on Monday.

AT&T National Championship Game at Jerry World:

(2)Oregon(-6.5):

Wins: vs. South Dakota(62-13), vs. Michigan State(46-27), vs. Wyoming(48-14), at Washington State(38-31), at UCLA(42-30), vs. Washington(45-20), at California(59-41), vs. Stanford(45-16), at Utah(51-27), vs. Colorado(44-10), at Oregon State(47-19), vs. Arizona(51-13), vs. Florida State(59-20)

Loss: vs. Arizona(24-31)

Record vs. Bowl Teams: 7-1

(4)Ohio State:

Wins: at Navy(34-17), vs. Kent State(66-0), vs. Cincinnati(50-28), at Maryland(52-24), vs. Rutgers(56-17), at Penn State(31-24 2OT), vs. Illinois(55-14), at Michigan State(49-37), at Minnesota(31-24), vs. Indiana(42-27), vs. Michigan(42-28), vs. Wisconsin(59-0), vs. Alabama(42-35)

Loss: vs. Virginia Tech(21-35)

Record vs. Bowl Teams: 11-1

Common Opponents:

Michigan State: Oregon won by 19 at home. Ohio State won by 12 in East Lansing. Advantage: PUSH.

Predicton:

Oregon destroyed an overmatched Florida State team. The Seminoles kept it close for the first 20-25 minutes, but that is when the Oregon defense took over. The Ducks forced Jameis Winston into mistake after mistake, and the game snowballed out of control. This only lent validation to the people who said that Florida State didn’t belong, and validated the whole playoff system because under the old system the two teams that are in the championship game would not have made it.

Ohio State could have folded. There was a time during the second quarter when Alabama was in control, and threatening to go up even more. That’s when the Buckeyes locked down the defense. Before Urban Meyer got there, I am inclined to believe that the Buckeyes would have folded. Not this team. As good as J.T. Barrett and Ezekiel Elliott were this season, it was the defense that carried the team for much of the year. That is the unit that stepped up again against Alabama. The Tide were the best team that Ohio State had faced this year, and it showed.

I think the Buckeyes earned a lot of respect with the game that they played against Alabama. If this spread were made last week, I am guessing that it would be double this.

As good as Alabama’s offense was, they still look like a station wagon compared to Oregon’s Bugatti Veyron. The Ducks try not to let you catch your breath. The tempo of their offense is something that their opponents regularly struggle with. The advantage that Ohio State has is that Urban Meyer ran an up-tempo offense at Florida as well. It was not as fast as Oregon’s, but it at least gives them something similar to prepare for.

The key to this game for Ohio State will be to control the ball. Oregon can’t score nearly as much if their offense doesn’t have the ball. If they try to run with the Ducks, they are going to get themselves in trouble. They need their offense to control the ball to keep that defense well rested.

When it comes down to picking a game like this, the quarterback position is so important. The Buckeyes have done a superb job of keeping the pressure off of first J.T. Barrett and now Cardale Jones. Oregon will likely try to rattle him, but even Alabama’s outstanding defensive line could not. I doubt Oregon will either. That said, Mariota is the best game manager we have seen since probably Tim Tebow. Say what you will about Tebow, but the way he managed the game in college was brilliant. Mariota is just as good, if not better. I simply can’t pick against a guy like that. For under a touchdown, The Ducks seem like the easy pick, though I do expect a good game.

Pick: Oregon

Next: One Last Look At The Picks For All Of The Bowls

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