Those poor saps. Holed up in that swanky hotel in suburban Dallas trying to wade through this mess. 

Rivalry Week came and went, and now the 13 members of the College Football Playoff selection committee have to wrap their collective minds around another chaotic week of upsets.

All that’s at stake are the precious 12 spots in the playoff.

“I’m still trying to digest everything that just happened,” Ohio State coach Ryan Day said.

So is the CFP selection committee. But here we go: 

Michigan beat No.2 Ohio State, again. Now the best win for the Buckeyes is Penn State, whose best win is a loss to Ohio State.

Penn State, since losing to Ohio State on Nov. 2, has beaten Washington, Purdue, Minnesota and Maryland (combined record of 18-30), and will likely move all the way to the No. 2 ranking. 

Penn State will trail only No. 1 Oregon, whose best win is against Ohio State. Then there’s 11-win Indiana, who best win is a loss to Ohio State.

See the lunacy yet?

Oh, it gets better.  

Texas decided to finally make a statement, bullying Texas A&M and getting its first win against a CFP-ranked team — only three months into the season. The Longhorns will now play Georgia in the SEC championship game, the same Georgia that scared the Bevo out of Texas in October with a humiliating beating in Austin. 

And speaking of humiliating, while Ohio State was gagging in yet another loss to Michigan, the fall guy for last year’s loss in The Game (quarterback Kyle McCord) led Syracuse to an upset of Miami. The same Miami that had been the playoff committee’s projected ACC champion since the first poll in early November. 

UP AND DOWN: Winners and losers from college football’s Week 14

DAY DONE?: Another loss to Michigan puts Ohio State coach on hot seat

The Hurricanes lost for the second time in three games, and are out. Of everything. 

That would be Tennessee, whose best win is Alabama, which lost by 21 points last week to six-loss Oklahoma, and beat seven-loss Auburn this week — and is likely in the CFP despite that hideous finish to November.

SMU, the hottest team not named South Carolina, will play Clemson in the ACC championship game, and may be in the tournament win or lose. 

Clemson lost at home to the hottest team in college football, and the Tigers are in the ACC championship game — while South Carolina is on the CFP bubble after its sixth consecutive win.

So now what does the CFP selection committee do? Here’s a guess, knowing the men and women of the committee have shown a distinct propensity for wins (how many, not necessarily good wins) and the Big Ten.

1. Oregon: Ducks are only undefeated FBS team while pushing through a fairly navigable schedule. That will change in the CFP. 

2. Texas: The defense is much better now than what Georgia saw in October.

3. SMU: A year ago, Mustangs bribed the ACC (because that’s what the $200 million initiation fee was) just to get in the league. Now look.

4. Arizona State: Projected Big 12 champion gets first-round bye, and possibly a quarterfinal game in Glendale, Arizona.

5. Notre Dame: QB Riley Leonard is hitting his stride, and Irish are dangerous. 

6. Georgia: Get Dawgs away from Athens, and it’s a different team. 

7. Tennessee: A huge moment for QB Nico Iamaleava against Vanderbilt. Maybe Vols pass game is a legit threat moving forward.

8. Ohio State: How do the Buckeyes move forward after a gut-punch loss that collapsed everything built this offseason?

9. Penn State: I have no idea what the committee sees in this team, but they’ll be No. 2 in the nation (and No.5 seed) on Tuesday. That’s a lock.

10. Alabama: Tide could be traveling to Tennessee or Georgia/Texas in a first round game against an SEC rival.

11. Boise State: Mountain West Conference champion — Boise State or UNLV — gets this spot.

12. Indiana: Who among us believes Indiana beats South Carolina?

Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.

(This story was updated to change a video.)

The game was over, the humiliation complete. 

I ask you, what was Ryan Day doing meandering on the Ohio Stadium field while his emotionally-charged Ohio State players fought with bitter rival Michigan after another gutting loss to the Wolverines?

You want a reason to fire Day? Here it is. 

It has nothing to do with losing for the fourth consecutive time to Michigan, which is what his eventual demise will be all about. This has to do with unthinkable inaction when his team’s world was falling apart.

How else can I say this? GET YOUR TEAM OFF THE FIELD.

‘I don’t know all the details of it, but I know those guys were looking to put a flag on our field and our guys weren’t going to let that happen,’ Day said after the game.

Here’s a novel idea: how about your guys don’t ‘let’ Michigan, which can’t consistently throw a forward pass to save its football life, suck the oxygen from the biggest game of the season in a critical second half?

I don’t care that Michigan’s players wanted to plant that big “M” flag on the block “O” at the 50. Don’t care that you or anyone at Ohio State thinks it’s disrespectful or classless. 

GET OFF THE FIELD ― before something much uglier than another loss to Michigan unfolds. 

Sprint into the fray, and scream at your players to get in the locker room. Instead of standing on the field from afar, a dumbfounded look on your face. 

Because this game, in the words of Day himself, is different.

“This game is a war,” Day said earlier this week. “Any time there is a war, there’s consequences and casualties. Then there’s plunder and the rewards that come with it.”

How incredibly foretelling. It’s almost as if Day were writing his own coaching tombstone days before it all played out.

But instead of singing the school’s alma mater and skulking into the locker room, Day allowed his team of 18-22-year-old men to engage those who won the war — and then began to plunder. 

This isn’t the toughness and attitude Day proclaimed this team had after it was meticulously built this offseason for this moment. In one mentally long and draining November afternoon, it became a desperation season of throwing $41 million at a problem – $20 million for the roster, $21 million for the coaching staff – and hoping it would go away.

A mentally and physically tough team doesn’t get pushed around at home by a one-dimensional, double-digit underdog with no business winning the game — then stay on the field because they don’t want the mean men to plant a flag on their field. 

Boo-freaking-hoo. 

There are consequences to losing, and there are casualties. There are winners and there are losers, and they are unmistakable after something like this. 

Michigan, whose coach is a known NCAA cheat who deleted 52 text messages from another known NCAA cheat when both were caught in a scam to, you know, cheat, is somehow the winner in all of this.

Then there’s Day, who owns a near-flawless 47-1 record vs. every team in the Big Ten not named Michigan. And is 1-4 vs. war.

You don’t lose at war 80 percent of the time, and get another shot with another loaded team and another $41 million. You get canned. 

And if there were any doubt about where Day and this team is headed, just look at what played out after Ohio State quarterback Will Howard’s final, futile pass fluttered aimlessly in the cold Columbus afternoon and officially ended Ohio State’s undoing in the biggest game of the season. 

‘I’ll find out exactly what happened, but it’s our field,’ Day said. ‘There are some prideful guys that weren’t just going to let that go down.”

Memo to Ohio State: you’re not “protecting your house” if it’s post-ass kicking. Get off the field, already.

The Game is over. The Big Ten championship is gone. The millions have been spent and blown.

The College Football Playoff is still a lock, but who among us thinks this team will shake off yet another Michigan meltdown and win a national title – thereby saving Day’s job – by winning four consecutive postseason games? 

Firing a coach who has won 47 of 48 Big Ten games against teams not named Michigan is insane. It would be like firing Georgia coach Kirby Smart because he can’t beat Alabama. 

But the noise in the system will begin with another Michigan debacle on the field. When what happened off the field after the loss is just as damaging. 

The game is over, the humiliation complete. There are consequences and casualties to war.

No one understands that better than Ryan Day.

Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.

Ohio State University police said they are investigating officers who sprayed pepper spray at Ohio State Buckeyes and Michigan Wolverines players while trying to break up an on-field fight after Michigan’s 13-10 win over OSU. 

In a statement posted on the social media platform X (previously called Twitter), Ohio State University police addressed the incident.

‘Following the game, officers from multiple law enforcement agencies assisted in breaking up an on-field altercation. During the scuffle, multiple officers representing Ohio and Michigan deployed pepper spray. OSUPD is the lead agency for games & will continue to investigate,’ the statement reads.

Ohio State did not disclose whether the officers who fired the pepper spray work for campus police or outside police agencies often hired to work as extra security during the events. It also did not disclose the officers’ identities.

Brian Steel, president of Fraternal Order of Police Capital City Lodge 9, posted a statement on X after the game saying at least one officer suffered an injury.

‘Following an altercation between (Ohio State) and (Michigan) football players after the game, one officer was injured and transported to the hospital,’ Steel wrote. ‘Officers are authorized to use pepper spray to stop assaults and protect themselves and others.’

In the moments after Michigan beat arch-rival Ohio State on Saturday at Ohio Stadium, Wolverines and Buckeyes players got into a skirmish near midfield after a group of Michigan players tried to plant a Michigan flag at midfield, The Columbus Dispatch previously reported.

From there, a physical altercation ensued between players of both teams. Videos that flooded social media showed several players throwing punches. After several minutes, the players were eventually separated.

Before the fight was broken up, Buckeyes defensive end Jack Sawyer ripped the Michigan flag away from Wolverines players and threw it to the turf before walking away, The Dispatch reported earlier. 

According to reporters on the field during the fight, police used pepper spray, which caused at least two Michigan players to go to the turf rubbing their faces.

What did Ryan Day say about Ohio State-Michigan brawl?

In his post-game comments, Ohio State coach Ryan Day said he didn’t know all the details about the fight.

‘I don’t know all the details of it, but I know those guys were looking to put a flag on our field, and our guys weren’t going to let that happen,’ he said. ‘I’ll find out exactly what happened, but it’s our field.’

But he did speak to players after the fight ended. 

‘I talked to the team after the game. Without knowing all the details, there’s some prideful guys on our team that aren’t just going to sit back and watch that happen,’ he said. 

Day did not have an update on the players who were peppered sprayed. The Dispatch captured an image of Buckeyes defensive tackle Hero Kanu receiving treatment for his eyes after the altercation.

‘I don’t know if I know all that right now. It was a couple things kind of crazy that went on down there, but I think everybody’s OK,’ he said.

Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork told The Dispatch he needed more information about the incident. 

The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast.Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.

Nobody in the SEC has played better the second half of the season than Texas. Certainly, no defense played better. Physical ball wins in the SEC.
Steve Sarkisian fancied a rematch with Georgia. Texas earned it with a 17-7 win against Texas A&M.
Beating Georgia would signify that Texas now plays the most physical ball in the SEC.

COLLEGE STATION, Texas – Coaches rarely allow themselves a moment to look too far into the future, but in the immediate aftermath of Texas’ only loss this season, Steve Sarkisian took a quick peek toward the end of the season.  

‘Hopefully,’ Sarkisian said on Oct. 19, after a 30-15 loss to Georgia, ‘we get another crack at them.’

Texas earned it, by the way it played in six consecutive victories following that loss.

Here comes Texas vs. Georgia, Part II.

On the line: Conference supremacy, and a College Football Playoff bye into the quarterfinals.

Nobody in the SEC has played better the second half of the season than Texas.

Certainly, no defense played better.

Texas’ defense never allowed Texas A&M into the end zone in a 17-7 victory on Saturday that buttoned up a spot for the Longhorns in the College Football Playoff. The Aggies’ lone touchdown came off an interception return.

‘Best (defense) in the nation,’ Texas defensive lineman Alfred Collins said.

That Collins could make such a comment without hyperbole speaks to how far Sarkisian brought this program in four seasons.

‘We won the game in a physical manner,’ Sarkisian said, ‘which is what we know we needed to do in the Southeastern Conference.’

In four years, Steve Sarkisian built Texas defense ready for SEC

Defense proved a liability in Sarkisian’s first season in charge, the continuation of a Texas program that played too soft for too long.

Before that 2021 season, the SEC voted to add Texas to the conference this season.

Just a couple of months after that vote, Arkansas whipped Texas in a game that showed the Longhorns weren’t physically prepared for the SEC. They had three years to get prepared, though, and Sarkisian transformed Texas at the lines of scrimmage.

Now, the Longhorns ooze veteran maulers on the line on each side of the ball, and it’s notable that Texas allows fewer points per game than any SEC team since Georgia’s 2021 squad, the first of Kirby Smart’s two teams that won back-to-back national championships.

The score of Texas’ loss to Georgia belies how the Longhorns’ defense played in that meeting. Four Texas turnovers persistently painted the Longhorns into bad spots. Only one Georgia scoring drive spanned more than 34 yards, and the Longhorns intercepted Carson Beck three times to keep Texas within spitting distance.

A win in Atlanta would place Texas into the playoff quarterfinals, but it would be symbolic, too, an official passing of the torch that the Georgia program that set the standard for physicality and defensive disruption the past few years gave way to a new batch of bullies.

That’s played out on the field for most of the season. While no SEC defense outperformed Texas, Georgia’s defense really hasn’t come close.

When these teams met in Austin, though, Georgia’s defense looked as menacing as ever.

The Texas offensive line that otherwise has been so sturdy couldn’t protect its quarterbacks, and the moment – and the opponent – just seemed a little too big for the Longhorns to handle.

For 11½ games, Texas looked the part of national championship contender. The exception came throughout that first half against Georgia, while the Bulldogs piled up sacks and turnovers and blitzed their way to an insurmountable 23-point halftime lead.

At that point, it would have been strange to figure that Texas would earn a rematch, but in this messy, murky, upside-down college football season, few teams played as sound as Texas did in November.

Texas Longhorns figured out the SEC, down to the chant

Texas’ critics will point out that the Longhorns faced an accommodating schedule, but elite teams beat opponents they’re supposed to beat and dominate while doing it.

As several SEC playoff contenders suffered puzzling losses to unranked opponents, Texas kept putting the SEC’s bottom-half teams in a vise.

‘The game is won upfront,’ Sarkisian said. ‘We don’t play flag football. We don’t play 7-on-7. You’ve got to be really good upfront, especially in this conference.’

Texas fans figured out what they’re supposed to do in this conference.

As the final seconds ticked off Saturday night, those wearing burnt orange in the crowd of 109,028 began chanting the letters of their new conference.

‘SEC! SEC! SEC!’ they bellowed.

Physical football tends to prevail in this conference.

Didn’t take Texas long to figure that out.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer. Subscribe to read all of his columns.

Bowl Subdivision conference championship matchups are finally settled after weeks of uncertainty, setting the stage for the final weekend of the regular season and the final College Football Playoff rankings.

The nine championship games will be played on Friday and Saturday. The playoff rankings and bracket will be released early on Sunday afternoon.

Nearly every game will have some sort of playoff impact. The three exceptions are the Conference USA, Mid-American and Sun Belt championship games, since those leagues will not factor into deciding which Group of Five team earns an automatic playoff bid.

That spot will go to the American Athletic or Mountain West, with those two title games set to take place simultaneously on Friday night. The matchup in the MWC is expected to Boise State against UNLV, though that won’t be official until Tuesday night’s penultimate playoff rankings. Every Power Four matchup will at a minimum influence seeding and which teams earn opening-round byes.

These games will close the door on a crazy regular season and get us set for the postseason:

ACC: SMU (11-1) vs. Clemson (9-3)

The Tigers were able to sneak into this game after Miami dropped a shootout against Syracuse. After losing to South Carolina on Saturday, beating SMU is Clemson’s only shot at reaching the playoff. The Mustangs would’ve been a strong at-large contender with a loss to one-loss Miami, but that may not be the case should they fall to the three-loss Tigers. The odds are rising that the ACC is a one-bid league.

UP AND DOWN: Winners and losers from college football’s Week 14

DAY DONE?: Another loss to Michigan puts Ohio State coach on hot seat

Big 12: Arizona State (10-2) vs. Iowa State (10-2)

This is a win-and-in matchup for a pair of 10-win teams that took slightly different routes to the title game. Iowa State was 7-0 before dropping games to Texas Tech and Kansas; the Cyclones rebounded to beat Cincinnati, Utah and Kansas State to reach Arlington, Texas, for the second time in Matt Campbell’s tenure. Arizona State play for Big 12 championship in its first season in the league after one appearance in the Pac-12 title game back in 2013. The Sun Devils will head into Saturday on a five-game winning streak highlighted by wins against Kansas State and Brigham Young. While these two didn’t meet in the regular season, Arizona State lost to Cincinnati but beat Kansas, if that means anything.

Big Ten: Oregon (12-0) vs. Penn State (11-1)

Both teams are in the playoff, so this will determine which Big Ten team gets bye to start the playoff and which will hosts a visitor in the first round. The loser might end up at No. 5, which has two major benefits: one, drawing the No. 12 seed, and two, potentially matching up with Boise State in the quarterfinals. The Ducks should be a lock for the No. 1 overall seed with a win. Should the Nittany Lions prevail, they could be in the mix for that position with Georgia or Texas of the SEC.

SEC: Texas (11-1) vs. Georgia (10-2)

The rematch should be more competitive than Georgia’s 30-15 win in Austin earlier this year. While the Bulldogs struggled in an eight-overtime classic against Georgia Tech, Texas overcame some major sloppiness in the second half to score a 17-7 win at Texas A&M. That puts the Longhorns in the playoff regardless of what happens on Saturday. You can’t necessarily say the same for Georgia, since a third loss would invite comparisons to fellow three-loss contenders Alabama and Mississippi, which beat the Bulldogs.

American Athletic: Tulane (9-3) at Army (10-1)

The host team by going a perfect 8-0 in league play and finishing first in the final standings, the Black Knights will be watching the scoreboard and hoping for an upset in the Mountain West. With a Boise State loss and a win against Tulane, the Black Knights would have an argument for being the Group of Five pick for the playoff. But even that isn’t certain given that UNLV would have a case of its own.

Conference USA: Western Kentucky (8-4) at Jacksonville State (8-4)

Yeah, these two teams will meet again on Friday night, six days after Western Kentucky topped Jacksonville State 19-17 to clinch a spot in the Conference USA title game. The Hilltoppers were able to finish second in the standings thanks to the head-to-head tiebreaker with Sam Houston State. The big question heading into this matchup: How much did Rich Rodriguez and the Gamecocks show Western Kentucky on Saturday, knowing they could meet again less than a week later? Jacksonville State had won eight in a row, scoring at least 31 points in every game but one.

MAC: Ohio (9-3) at Miami (Ohio) (8-4)

Both teams are on a roll. Ohio has won five in a row, including two keys wins against Buffalo and Toledo, and Miami has taken seven in a row, capped by Friday’s victory against Bowling Green. These teams met on Oct. 19, with the RedHawks scoring a 30-20 win. Miami is looking for back-to-back MAC titles for the first time since 1973-75 while Ohio is aiming for the program’s first league crown since 1968.

Mountain West: UNLV (10-2) at Boise State (11-1)

Boise State is in the playoff with a win, and maybe even as one of the top four conference champions. But the same might be said of UNLV, which rose to No. 22 in last week’s playoff rankings. The MWC tiebreaker between UNLV and Colorado State is which team is ranked higher on Tuesday night, and the Rebels are certain to stay in rankings. Army was unranked after losing to Notre Dame and Tulane was No. 17, though the Green Wave very likely won’t be in this week’s rankings. That suggests the Mountain West winner will be the Group of Five representative in the playoff.

Sun Belt: Marshall (9-3) at Louisiana-Lafayette (10-2)

Louisiana will host the championship game, which is a crucial advantage given conference history: The home team is 5-0 in the Sun Belt title game since the league enacted its divisional split in 2018. The Ragin’ Cajuns have been the most consistent team in the conference, which had eight teams reach bowl eligibility after placing 12 in the postseason a year ago. Marshall booked its seat after climbing out of a 17-0 halftime hole at James Madison to win 35-33 in double overtime. Louisiana might’ve had a chance at the playoff had it not lost to South Alabama earlier this month.

Coach Deion Sanders and the Colorado Buffaloes finished the regular season in a four-way for first place in the Big 12 Conference but have been shut out of the Big 12 championship game next weekend because they lost to Kansas and Kansas State earlier this year.

That’s what it boiled down to for the Buffs, according to Big 12 tiebreaker rules.

Arizona State (10-2) and Iowa State (10-2) instead will play each other for the Big 12 football championship Dec. 7 in Arlington, Texas, after they finished the regular season tied for first place with with Colorado (9-3) and BYU (10-2), each with a 7-2 league record.

Arizona State and Iowa State won the right to play for the championship according to league tiebreaker rules, which stress the importance of records against common Big 12 opponents and their strength of schedule in league play.

Why are ASU, Iowa State playing for the Big 12 title, not CU, BYU?

All of those first-place teams have not played each other this season and none of them defeated all the other tied teams. According to Big 12 rules, the next tiebreaker is their records against common conference opponents.

In this case, the four first-place teams had four common Big 12 opponents: Kansas, Kansas State, Utah and Central Florida. Arizona State was 4-0 against those teams. BYU and Iowa State were both 3-1. Colorado was 2-2, having lost against Kansas and Kansas State.

That gave Arizona State the advantage in this tie. The tie between BYU and Iowa State gets more complicated but ultimately was settled by the strength of each team’s league schedule, based on combined win percentage in conference games. Iowa State edged BYU with a combined opponent’s league record of 36-45 compared to 31-50 for BYU. In the end, it hurt BYU’s case that it played Oklahoma State (0-9) and Arizona (2-7) while Iowa State did not.

It still came down to the last game for Colorado

The same four teams entered the final weekend of the regular season in a tie for first place in the Big 12 with 6-2 league records. All won to leave a four-way tie.

∎ Colorado beat Oklahoma State on Friday at home, 52-0, to finish 9-3 overall under head coach Deion Sanders.

∎ Arizona State beat Arizona on Saturday on the road, 49-7.

∎ Iowa State beat Kansas State on Saturday at home, 29-21.

∎ BYU won a late Saturday night game at home against Houston, 30-18.

Colorado needed two of those other first-place teams to lose to get into the championship, or a BYU loss combined with a Texas Tech win against West Virginia. Tech did beat West Virginia Saturday, 52-15, leaving Colorado’s fate up to the late Saturday night game at BYU on ESPN.

If BYU had lost, CU would have been in a three-way tie for first with Arizona State and Iowa State.

In that case, all three teams have 4-2 records against common Big 12 opponents. The next tiebreaker would be their records against the next highest placed common opponents in the league standings. That would be second-place Texas Tech (6-3). Colorado beat Tech this season but Iowa State and Arizona State both lost the Red Raiders – a deciding factor that would have put CU into the Big 12 title game under that scenario.

When and where is the Big 12 championship game?

It will be at noon ET on Dec. 7 on ABC from AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

Will the winner get into the College Football Playoff?

Almost certainly. The 12-team playoff gives automatic berths to the five highest-ranked league champions, in addition to seven at-large berths. The Big 12 champ would need to outrank one of at least five other league champs in the final playoff rankings Dec. 8 to get an automatic playoff berth.  In the current playoff rankings, teams from four other leagues outrank the Big 12’s highest ranked team, Arizona State at No. 16. The Sun Devils are just one spot higher than the leader from the sixth-highest ranked league leader: Tulane of the American Athletic Conference at No. 17. Iowa State is No. 18.

The good news for the Big 12 is that Tulane lost to Memphis on Thanksgiving, which will drop them below both Arizona State and Iowa State in the rankings. To get an automatic berth, the Big 12 champ needs to outrank the winner of the AAC championship game on Friday: Army (9-1) vs. Tulane (9-3).

Where will Colorado play in a bowl game?

It still looks like the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio on Dec. 28. The Alamo Bowl matches a team from the Big 12 to play a team from the former Pac-12 Conference, according to contracts that predated the demise of the Pac-12. The Alamo Bowl gets first pick among non-playoff teams from both of those pools of eligible teams, with an eye on avoiding regular-season rematches and maximizing television viewership and ticket sales.

If Arizona State goes to the playoff as the Big 12 champ, the Alamo could pick Colorado as a former Pac-12 team to play BYU or Iowa State, even though all of those teams are now in the Big 12. Colorado still hasn’t played BYU since 1988 and hasn’t played Iowa State since 2010.

If Iowa State goes to the playoff, the Alamo Bowl still could pick a 9-3 Colorado team over a 10-3 Arizona State team.

If the Alamo Bowl passed on Colorado, the Holiday Bowl in San Diego has the next pick among former Pac-12 teams and likely would take the Buffs to play a team from the Atlantic Coast Conference in the Dec. 27 game.

What doomed Colorado this season?

The Buffs had a great year, improving from 4-8 in Sanders’ first season and 1-11 in 2022. But if they had just beaten Kansas on Nov. 23, they’d be alone in first place and playing for the Big 12 title. They lost, 37-21, after falling into a 17-0 hole at the start.

The loss to Kansas State still stings, too, since it hurt the Buffs’ tiebreaker chances. The Buffs lost that one at home Oct. 12, 31-28, even after gaining a lead late in the fourth quarter.

Why were so many teams tied for first place in the Big 12?

The league doesn’t play a full round-robin schedule and also is not split into divisions despite its size (16 teams) with the addition this season of Colorado, Arizona State, Arizona and Utah. Each team only plays nine league games in the regular season. Since every Big 12 team does not play each other, multiple teams can easily end up with the same record in league play. It’s also why five Big 12 teams entered the weekend tied for second place with 5-3 league records.

Head-to-head competition otherwise is the first tiebreaker between two tied teams.

Colorado, for example, hadn’t played BYU, Iowa State or Arizona State in the regular season, but could end up playing BYU or Iowa State in the Alamo Bowl Dec. 28.

Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com

Looking back at how each team reached the final Saturday of November, there was almost nothing out there to suggest the Wolverines would score this upset.

But there were two factors that were clearly overlooked. One was history: Michigan had won three in a row in this rivalry, so thoroughly humbling Ohio State that the No. 2 Buckeyes essentially reinvented themselves to regain a foothold in the series.

Another was Michigan’s defense. While not quite up to the standard set a year ago, this group carried the Wolverines into the postseason with no help from one of the worst offenses in modern program history.

History, defense, key plays in key moments, the ability to eventually dictate the flow of this game despite Ohio State’s best efforts, another dominant fourth quarter – that’s how the Wolverines scored what should go down as one of the great upsets in the rivalry’s history.

For Michigan, the win overwrites what had been an often miserable year under new coach Sherrone Moore. His tenure now has a marquee moment upon which to build the foundation for a future Big Ten or national champion.

In the immediate future, the Buckeyes will no longer reach the conference championship game. No. 1 Oregon will instead meet No. 4 Penn State, which closed out the regular season by beating Maryland. Not playing for the Big Ten crown will force Ohio State to sweat out the final College Football Playoff rankings and see where their postseason journey begins..

And in the bigger picture, this is a nightmare moment for coach Ryan Day. He is the first Ohio State coach to lose four in a row to Michigan since John Cooper from 1988-91 and the first coach to lose to an unranked Michigan team since Cooper in 1993.

This is the worst loss of Day’s tenure and one of the Buckeyes’ worst losses in this series. Despite his regular-season success against teams other than the Wolverines, Day may never live this one down.

The Buckeyes, Wolverines and South Carolina lead Saturday’s winners and losers:

Winners

Texas

Thirteen years in the making, the No. 3 Longhorns’ 17-7 win against No. 19 Texas A&M sends Texas to the SEC championship game against No. 6 Georgia. This was a 10-point game that felt much worse than that for the Aggies, who stayed in the game in the second half thanks to two Texas turnovers in the red zone and a blocked punt. Overall, this is the best win of the year for the Longhorns, which says something about the lack of marquee wins on this year’s schedule. Credit Texas for taking care of matters against a relatively weak slate. While not the prettiest win, this victory in College Station will go down in program history for being the first in this rekindled rivalry and for the high stakes at play.

Michigan

Michigan should play a bowl game in Charlotte, Nashville or Tampa while Ohio State might end up in the playoff, so the Buckeyes could end up having the last laugh. Yeah, right: The Wolverines are going to be laughing at the Buckeyes’ expense for another year after owning the fourth quarter, continuing one of the dominant themes of this four-game winning streak. Going back to 2021, Michigan has outscored OSU 75-31 in the second half.

South Carolina

With his team down 14-10 with just over a minute left, South Carolina quarterback LaNorris Sellers weaved his way through No. 12 Clemson’s defense for a 20-yard touchdown run to complete the Gamecocks’ 17-14 win and an incredible run through the second half of the regular season. No. 14 South Carolina closed with six wins in a row, four against ranked competition, and now are in position to earn a miraculous playoff berth with some help in the Power Four. In a do-or-die rivalry matchup for both teams, the Gamecocks were able to intercept Cade Klubnik on the game’s final possession to win in Death Valley for the second time in a row.

Clemson

But Clemson is also a winner, of a sort. Despite losing the rivalry game, the Tigers will backdoor into the ACC championship game by virtue of No. 6 Miami’s loss to Syracuse. After all this, Clemson might get back into the playoff by beating No. 9 SMU and winning the ACC for seventh time in nine years.

Tennessee and Notre Dame

These two prominent playoff contenders locked down at-large bids with rivalry wins to close out the regular season. Nico Iamaleava had four touchdowns passes to spark No. 8 Tennessee’s 36-23 win against Vanderbilt. Later on Saturday afternoon, the No. 5 Fighting Irish outscored Southern California 21-7 in the third quarter and then had two field-length interception returns for touchdowns in the fourth to win 49-35. The Irish are in position to host an opening-round playoff opponent. The Volunteers may as well, depending on what happens in next week’s conference championship games.

Virginia Tech

Beating Virginia 37-17 to get bowl eligible takes some sting out of a season that didn’t quite according to plan for Virginia Tech, which received some Top 25 consideration in the preseason but struggled through a rough start and finish to the regular season. The Hokies lost three of five to open the year and then, crippled by injuries, lost three in a row to open November. But despite some setbacks, this team was close to breaking through: Tech’s six losses came by a combined 34 points, with five of six coming by single digits.

Marshall

Down 17-0 at halftime to James Madison and needing a win to fend off Georgia Southern and reach the Sun Belt championship game, Marshall outscored the Dukes 24-7 in the second half and then won 35-33 in double overtime to earn a matchup next Saturday with Louisiana-Lafayette. The Thundering Herd gained only 262 yards of offense but made several big plays on defense, most notably a 28-yard pick-six to tie the game at 17-17 with two minutes to go in the third quarter. Marshall hasn’t won a conference title since taking the Conference USA belt in 2014.

Losers

The ACC

Losing 42-38 to Syracuse puts No. 6 Miami’s playoff hopes in dire straits. But they aren’t dead entirely, not with the messiness that has ensued in the SEC and the dearth of contenders with fewer than three losses. We’ll know with the penultimate playoff rankings on Tuesday night where Miami really stands. The Hurricanes’ case rests on at least five wins against bowl teams, led by wins against Duke and Louisville. Overall, though, this is the story for the ACC: That Clemson and Miami lost on Saturday very likely makes this a one-bid league to the playoff.

Ryan Day

It’s hard to describe just how disastrous Saturday was for Day, who has excelled at Ohio State in every metric but the two that matter: beating the Wolverines and winning national championships. He may still have the chance to achieve the latter thanks to playoff expansion. But regardless of what happens over the next two months, this loss to Michigan is one Day will never live down. While the idea that he’d be replaced after this year remains difficult to imagine, Day will at a minimum head into the 2025 season needing to beat Michigan, play for the Big Ten crown and make a deep run into the playoff to ensure his future with the Buckeyes.

Kansas

The second-half magic ran out near the finish line for Kansas, which had three ranked wins in a row against Iowa State, Brigham Young and Colorado but lost 45-21 to Baylor to fall just shy of bowl eligibility. Down 21-10 at halftime, the Jayhawks allowed three touchdown drives of at least 62 yards in the third quarter to trail 42-17 heading into the third quarter. This was the first game all year that got out of hand: The Jayhawks’ remaining six losses came by a combined 30 points.

Auburn

The Iron Bowl came at the right time for No. 13 Alabama. After last week’s 24-3 loss to Oklahoma, the Crimson Tide took out some frustration on Auburn by running for 201 yards and four scores in a 28-14 win. That’s the Tigers’ fifth loss in a row in the series, the program’s longest losing streak since dropping nine in a row from 1973-81. The loss also keeps Auburn out of the postseason for the second time in three years while handing coach Hugh Freeze back-to-back losing seasons for the first time in his coaching career.

After weeks of uncertainty and trying to forecast every potential outcome, far-fetched as some may have been, the dust has finally settled and college football’s conference championship games are set.

The 2024 college football season ended in eventful fashion over the weekend with a set of Week 14 games that offered a number of exciting finishes, unexpected results and, yes, plenty of attempted flag plants at midfield.

No. 6 Georgia survived an eight-overtime thriller against Georgia Tech. No. 2 Ohio State was stunned as a three-touchdown favorite against Michigan. No. 7 Miami potentially saw its College Football Playoff dreams evaporate in a loss at Syracuse.

Those various outcomes, and even some of the less captivating games, provided some much-needed clarity.

For weeks, fans across the country learned about the various and often convoluted tiebreaker rules each league had to determine who faced off in the conference championship game. Now, with the regular season complete, those matchups for next week are finalized.

Who made it to those conference championship games, many of which will help determine automatic berths to the inaugural 12-team playoff?

Here’s what you need to know about the upcoming college football conference championship games:

College football conference championship games 2024

Each of the nine full FBS conferences — so not including the two-team Pac-12 — will stage a championship game next week.

Here’s a look at each of those matchups:

ACC championship game

SMU vs. Clemson

The Mustangs finished with the best record in the ACC in their inaugural season in the league, winning each of their eight conference games. Thanks to Miami’s loss to Syracuse, Clemson’s 7-1 ACC record put it one game ahead of the Hurricanes.

Big Ten championship game

Oregon vs. Penn State

The Ducks finished the regular season as the lone undefeated FBS squad. They’ll aim to maintain their unblemished record against the Nittany Lions, who earned a trip to Indianapolis thanks to Ohio State’s loss to Michigan. That result put them in a tie with Indiana, each of which has an 8-1 Big Ten record. Penn State went through because their conference opponents had a higher win percentage than the Hoosiers’.

Big 12 championship game

Arizona State vs. Iowa State

In perhaps the most involved tiebreaker situation of any league, four teams finished tied atop the Big 12 standings, each with a 7-2 record: Arizona State, Iowa State, Colorado and BYU. An astonishing nine of the conference’s 16 teams remained in contention headed into Week 14. Ultimately, the Sun Devils earned a spot by rolling rival Arizona 49-7 while BYU’s win over Houston, paired with Iowa State’s victory against Kansas State, sent the Cyclones to the title game while eliminating Deion Sanders’ Buffaloes from contention.

SEC championship game

Texas vs. Georgia

The Longhorns finished atop the SEC in their first season in the league, capping off a 7-1 debut season with a 17-7 win against rival Texas A&M. The Bulldogs finished in a tie with Tennessee for second, with each team sporting a 6-2 record, but Georgia got through by virtue of their head-to-head victory against the Volunteers. This game will be a rematch of the Bulldogs’ 30-15 win in Austin, Texas on October 19.

Mountain West championship game

Boise State vs. UNLV

Barring something truly unforeseen, the winner of this game will earn a spot in the playoff. Should Ashton Jeanty and the Broncos emerge victorious, there’s a strong chance they’ll get a first-round bye, should they remain ahead of the yet-to-be-determined Big 12 champion in the playoff committee rankings. This game’s a rematch of Boise State’s 29-24 win in Las Vegas on October 25.

AAC championship game

Army vs. Tulane

The Black Knights’ loss to Notre Dame and the Green Wave’s loss to Memphis almost certainly eliminates the winner of this game from earning the spot reserved in the playoff field for the fifth-highest-rated conference champion.

Sun Belt championship game

Louisiana vs. Marshall

In the only FBS conference that still has divisions, the west division champion Ragin’ Cajuns will take on the east division champion Thundering Herd. The host of the game will be determined based on a composite average of computer rankings that won’t be finalized and announced until Sunday.

MAC championship game

Ohio vs. Miami (Ohio)

The RedHawks and Bobcats finished the regular season with identical 7-1 marks in conference play, putting them a game ahead of Bowling Green and Buffalo.

Conference USA championship game

Jacksonville State vs. Western Kentucky

The Gamecocks, in their second FBS season and led by former Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez, finished first atop the league standings and will face the Hilltoppers, who actually beat them 19-17 on Saturday in the teams’ regular-season finale.

College football conference championship schedule 2024

Here’s a look at the schedule for next week’s conference championship games:

All times Eastern.

Friday, December 6

Western Kentucky at Jacksonville State, 7 p.m.
UNLV at Boise State, 8 p.m.
Tulane at Army, 8 p.m.

Saturday, December 7

Iowa State vs. Arizona State (Arlington, Texas), Noon
Miami (Ohio) vs. Ohio (Detroit), Noon
Georgia vs. Texas (Atlanta), 4 p.m.
Louisiana vs. Marshall, 7:30 p.m.
Oregon vs. Penn State (Indianapolis), 8 p.m.
Clemson vs. SMU (Charlotte), 8 p.m.