The decisions made and the college football playoff matchups will be Alabama and Notre Dame in the Rose Bowl.

They'll play that game in Dallas, Clemson and Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl, as usual in New Orleans, is the third time that Alabama has gone wire to wire atop the college football playoff rankings in a season.

And you see how it broke down there with Texas A and M at five.

Oklahoma at six.

And here they are, those who have been covering it for us all through the season.

Heather Danish and Paul Finebaum getting up early for us here.

Heather.

I texted you during the Saturday night during the Clemson Notre Dame game, and I said, Could Notre Dame get blown right out of this playoff?

And we were sort of speculating whether or not it could happen.

Why didn't it?

Why did the committee leave them in it for?

Because everyone has to remember that it is the entire body of work.

We tend to get wrapped up in the moment.

Oh, my gosh, they got blown out.

This is terrible.

But the previous 10 games, including a win earlier in November against the top four Clemson team that still counts.

Yes, the committee absolutely reconsidered that win after what they saw on Saturday and recognize that it was a totally different game against a totally different Clemson team.

But they still give them credit for the win as a win on the road against the top 15 North Carolina team.

At the end of the day, this committee, whether you agree with the picks or not used it's protocol, strength of schedule is one of them, and the Irish beat the Aggies in that aspect in that committee meeting room.

So, Paul, that was the decision they made.

Was that the right one?

It was the right one, but it was not a good choice at all because greeny neither choice was really very good.

I mean, you could have done the same thing with Ohio State.

This committee used the protocol.

They had one significant win of the two and it waas, as Heather says, the Notre Dame win against Clemson that trumped everything else.

A and M did not have a really good cause.

I mean, they play in a great league, but their signature wind was over Florida, which suffered its third loss of the season.

And you know, let's not think that this committee doesn't also think about the matchups.

I believe they dio and assay were discussing it.

I'm sure somebody was thinking to themselves.

They may not have said it out loud.

Do we really want to see Alabama and Texas A and M and the national semifinal?

Well, we see that game every year in the SEC.

We've already seen it this year.

Or do we want to see Alabama Notre Dame, the two greatest programs in college football history?

We have our answer.

Yeah, we got We got the four brand names in there, right?

There's no question of that.

Obama and Clemson and Ohio State, who have been the preeminent programs in the sport in recent years, and the Notre Dame, which with all of that history and everything else the Ohio state of it all.

Heather was the other thing.

Everyone was talking about so much talk amongst other coaches Brian Kelly, dabo Swinney about how they only played six games in the end.

How much difference did that wind up making in the room?

Well, they have been talking about unbalanced schedules from the start of these rankings.

They knew every committee member knew going into this, that this was going to be the most difficult season because of that reason.

But at the end of the day, that championship mattered tremendously to them.

They watched that game, and then after it was over, they went back into their meeting room because there was a break between the next game and they started to deliberate it.

And they noticed that Ohio State continues to find a way to win.

They were out 22 people, including starting wide receiver Chris.

A lot.

They gave him credit for that title.

So, Paul, I'll ask you the same question.

Does Ohio State having played just six games?

Do they belong in this playoff?

They do greeny, and this is 2020 and I know that's an excuse for everything, good or bad.

But you have to look at the big picture.

And it wasn't Ryan days fault.

It wasn't Justin Fields fault that they didn't start playing until late October.

That was the Conferences fault and we don't have time to go back through all the mistakes that the Big 10 made, but Ryan Day and his team made the most out of it, and they deserve credit by the way they wanted to play the whole season.

It wasn't like they were saying, We don't we don't We don't really like the optics here.

They were demanding to play and I think they were rewarded for that.

And they should have been because they are in my opinion.

Obviously, the committee is as well one of the top four teams in the country.

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