Boise State earns first-round playoff bye, slots into Fiesta Bowl. Here are seeds, matchups
Boise State football was rewarded with a first-round bye in the College Football Playoff on Sunday morning.
The Broncos were ranked No. 9 in the final CFP rankings of the season. However, the four highest-ranked conference champions get the top four seeds and a bye, and the Broncos were No. 3 after all of the league games were decided this weekend.
“We’re in a position to seriously do what’s never been done before,” redshirt sophomore quarterback Maddux Madsen said after a Boise State watch party for the bracket announcement.
On Friday night, the Broncos defeated UNLV 21-7 in the Mountain West championship game. Other conference championship results over the weekend, especially No. 16 Clemson’s 34-31 victory over SMU, paved the way for Boise State to slot in as high as it did.
Oregon of the Big Ten was the highest-rated conference champ, followed by SEC winner Georgia, Boise State, Big 12 champ Arizona State and the ACC’s Clemson.
The Broncos received a pretty favorable draw in the bracket, largely because the committee had Big Ten runner-up Penn State very highly ranked, despite the fact the Nittany Lions defeated only one other Top 25 team all season. Boise State will play the winner of No. 6 Penn State-No. 11 SMU in the Fiesta Bowl on Dec. 31 at 5:30 p.m. Mountain Time.
“I think it means almost everything to this team,” sixth-year offensive lineman Ben Dooley said. “We knew how good we were at the beginning of the season, and we wanted to prove that to people. And now we can say that we kind of made it. We’re not done yet, the work’s not finished, but we’re stoked to be here.”
The Nittany Lions were seeded one spot higher than a one-loss Notre Dame team and two spots higher than Ohio State, despite losing to the Buckeyes in the regular season. Both teams have two losses, but Penn State made the Big Ten title game, falling Saturday to No. 1 Oregon — the only team to beat Boise State this season. The Nittany Lions’ best wins this season were over Illinois and Minnesota.
SMU (11-2) lost on a last-second field goal in the ACC championship game Saturday night. The Mustangs were unbeaten in ACC play in the regular season, but they did not face Miami, Clemson or Syracuse — the other top teams. Their best wins were over Louisville and Pitt, and they had a three-point loss to BYU. They stayed in the field ahead of fellow ACC member Miami (10-2) and the top three-loss SEC teams: Alabama, Ole Miss and South Carolina.
Madsen told reporters Sunday that he’d prefer to face Penn State in the Fiesta Bowl because of the Nittany Lions’ “rich tradition of football.” The Nittany Lions, who will host the game against SMU, opened as a hefty 8.5-point favorite.
But for senior safety Seyi Oladipo, it doesn’t matter.
“It’s a nameless, faceless opponent, and that’s all it is,” Oladipo said. “We’ve got to play our game and football to our standard if we want to win that game.”
UNLV hung on at No. 24 in the final CFP rankings, and Illinois was No. 20. That means between Boise State, Penn State and SMU, they have a total of three victories over other teams in the CFP Top 25 — the Broncos’ two wins over the Rebels, and Penn State’s win over Illinois.
The other first-round playoff matchups are No. 10 Indiana at No. 7 Notre Dame (.-7.5), No. 9 Tennessee at No. 8 Ohio State (-6.5) and No. 12 Clemson at No. 5 Texas (-11.5).
If the first-round matchups were based simply on the rankings, without the conference champs receiving higher seeds, then Boise State would be playing a road game in the first round at Indiana.
Here is the seeding for the 12 teams included in the playoffs. Also in parentheses is the team’s ranking, which might not correlate with the seed.
1. Oregon (1, Big Ten Champion)
2. Georgia (2, SEC Champion)
3. Boise State (9, Mountain West Champion)
4. Arizona State (11, Big 12 Champion)
5. Texas (3)
6. Penn State (4)
7. Notre Dame (5)
8. Ohio State (6)
9. Tennessee (7)
10. Indiana (8)
11. SMU (10)
12. Clemson (16, ACC Champion)
This story was originally published December 8, 2024 at 10:34 AM.
