College Football Playoff 2020: Simulating a 16-team bracket

16-team College Football Playoff first round: 8 Cincinnati vs. 9 Georgia

Interestingly enough, this is one of the few games that would be scheduled for a 16-team College Football Playoff that we’ll actually get to see this year. The Cincinnati Bearcats and Georgia Bulldogs are set to face off on Jan. 1 in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl. And assuming that too many big names for either team don’t opt-out of the game, it should be a highly entertaining contest.

At the same time, this is a classic bowl-season matchup and narrative that everyone wants to see. In Cincinnati, you have a Group of 5 team that has enjoyed a perfect season and has passed every test that’s been put before them to this point. With Georgia, though, you have a powerhouse program that’s been in the National Championship recently and isn’t far from that level now either.

A matchup between these two teams would likely feature quite a bit of defense. The Bearcats have some explosiveness on offense but their success is predicated on suffocating their opponents. Georgia wants to do the same but with better athletes given the way they can recruit.

The X-factor for this matchup, however, is Georgia quarterback JT Daniels. Had he taken over the starting job earlier in the season, there’s a case to be made that they’d be in the College Football Playoff as a four-team affair. That would give them the offensive juice to pull ahead and comfortably get past Cincinnati.

Georgia wins, 27-13