College Football Playoff

Alabama will meet Ohio State and Oregon will face Florida State in the inaugural College Football Playoff.
The top four seeds, announced Sunday afternoon, will play in the Sugar and Rose Bowls on Jan. 1, with No. 1 Alabama playing No. 4 Ohio State in New Orleans and No. 2 Oregon playing No. 3 Florida State in Pasadena, Calif.

The winners of fhose games will meet for the national championship on Jan. 12 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

As expected, the fourth spot of the four-team field was the most contentious. Three teams — Ohio State, TCU and Baylor — all made compelling cases for securing the spot.

Baylor finished No. 5 in the Playoff rankings, and TCU was sixth. TCU had been No. 3 in the rankings entering Sunday's final decision by the Playoff selection committee.

"It was really about Ohio State's moving up, their performance on the field that made the difference to the committee to move them up," committee chair Jeff Long said on ESPN.

All three won convincingly this weekend, with the Horned Frogs thrashing Iowa State, 55-3, Baylor beating Kansas State, 38-27, and Ohio State cruising to a 59-0 win over Wisconsin in the Big Ten championship game.