College Football Playoff picks: SMU, Clemson, Vols, Hoosiers beware as CFP opens on campus

 

[December 19, 2024]  By ERIC OLSON

Welcome to the new-look postseason, where the path to the national championship begins at campus sites for eight of the 12 teams in the College Football Playoff.

Bundle up, buttercup.

Snow showers are forecast to give way to cloudy skies and temperatures in the 20s in South Bend, Indiana, for Friday night's Indiana-Notre Dame game.

A 10- to 15-mph northwest wind will make temperatures in the 20s feel like it's in the mid teens in State College, Pennsylvania, on Saturday for SMU-Penn State.

Temperatures in the low 20s with a light breeze is forecast for Columbus, Ohio, for Tennessee-Ohio State on Saturday night. Austin, Texas, will feel like the tropics, by comparison, with sun and low 60s temperatures expected for Clemson-Texas.

The conditions will be less of a factor for Indiana, Notre Dame and Ohio State — all are accustomed to raw afternoons and evenings late in the season — and Tennessee plays its share of games in chilly weather.

For SMU, its game could be the coldest in program history. The lowest temperature at kickoff for the Mustangs was 24 degrees — Dec. 7, 2013, against UCF in Dallas and Dec. 24, 1983, against Alabama in the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas.

SMU coach Rhett Lashlee has minimized the weather factor, noting his team holds morning practices when it's in the 30s and 40s. It looks like State College will be much colder than that, making it notable that only four of the 44 players on SMU's two-deep chart are from places outside the Sun Belt.

The picks, with seedings and lines from BetMGM Sportsbook:

No. 10 seed Indiana at No. 7 seed Notre Dame (minus 7 1/2)
An idyllic setting for the start of the 12-team playoff era: Notre Dame Stadium for a matchup of two Hoosier State teams that traditionally have lived on opposite ends of the college football world.

The upstart Hoosiers didn't fare so well on the their biggest stage of the regular season, losing by 23 points at Ohio State. The spotlight will be even brighter in South Bend. Indiana can win if the Notre Dame defense that allowed 35 points and 577 yards to Southern California shows up and if the Hoosiers' top-ranked run defense keeps Riley Leonard, Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price under control. Hard to see both of those things happening.

Pick: Notre Dame 28-17.

No. 11 seed SMU at No. 6 seed Penn State (minus 8 1/2)
Penn State is more battle-tested, having been in two top-five matchups (losses to Ohio State and Oregon), and the Nittany Lions have a huge home-field advantage. Of course, the fans in Happy Valley always are anxious when it comes to James Franklin and big games, and there's no proven backup to Drew Allar in the wake of Beau Pribula's untimely entry into the transfer portal.

 Penn State takes the field for an NCAA college football game against Washington amidst a "whiteout" crowd at Beaver Stadium, Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024, in State College, Pa. (AP Photo/Barry Reeger, File)

SMU quarterback Kevin Jennings has been really good, and occasionally great, while getting the Mustangs to this point. This will be too tall a task.

Pick: Penn State 24-14.

No. 12 seed Clemson (plus 11 1/2) at No. 5 seed Texas
Oh, the things that had to happen for Clemson to reach this game. First, it took Syracuse's upset of Miami to get the Tigers through the back door into the ACC championship game. Then the Tigers, who lost a 17-point halftime lead, needed Adam Randall’s 41-yard kick return to set up Nolan Hauser's career-long 56-yard field goal as time ran out to beat SMU.

Now Clemson's Cade Klubnik returns home to Austin for a quarterback duel against his high school rival Quinn Ewers. Tempting as it would be to keep the great Clemson storyline going, it ends here because the Longhorns are just too talented.

Pick: Texas 27-17.

No. 9 seed Tennessee (plus 7 1/2) at No. 8 Ohio State
Ohio State has had three weeks to stew on its fourth straight loss to Michigan — this time as a 21-point favorite at home — and deal with the cloud that has hovered over Ryan Day since. Now, in spite of his athletic director's vote of confidence, there's chatter about whether Day will be fired if he loses to the Volunteers as a touchdown favorite at home. Talk about pressure.

Tennessee, by comparison, can play freely. Josh Heupel had to knock down a “just-happy-to-be-there” question after the matchup was announced. The Volunteers have what it takes to pull an upset with 1,400-yard rusher Dylan Sampson and an elite defensive front. This one could be as close as an 8-9 matchup suggests.

Pick: Ohio State 24-23.

AP predictions scorecard
Conference championship week: Straight-up — 6-4 (including SWAC); Against spread — 4-5 (no line on SWAC).

Season: Straight-up — 217-61; Against spread — 139-137.

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