NCAA Death to the BCS Playoffs: Quarterfinals

Glad to see you all made it through the supposed apocalypse intact. With 4 more bowl games in the books, it's time for 4 more playoff matchups of college football.

The first round last week provided some intrigue for me with a few upsets, including one big shocker, which is why you need to decide the title on the field rather than by politics. Really, we have some fun matchups this week between a lot of good teams that fans didn't get to see during the regular season and wouldn't otherwise. No reseeding was done like in the NHL playoffs, so we're going with a straight up bracket once again.

Once again this week I'm simulating as a best of 3 with the clinching game being the official one. Higher seeds get to host, so we have 4 repeat sites for games. Weather for posted game times will be taken into account, and all simulations are provided by WhatIfSports.com.

(5) Georgia at (4) Kansas State
12/22/12, 12pm
Game 1: KSU 40, UGA 29
Game 2: KSU 26, UGA 21

(14) Utah State at (6) Florida
12/22/12, 3pm
Game 1: UF 32, USU 20
Game 2: UF 13, USU 3

(9) Oklahoma at (1) Notre Dame
12/22/12, 6pm
Game 1: ND 41, OU 34
Game 2: ND 35, OU 21

(10) Florida State at (2)Alabama
12/22/12, 6pm
Game 1: ALA 20, FSU 13
Game 2: ALA 36, FSU 13

FOR THE OFFICIAL PLAYOFF BRACKET, CLICK HERE.

Overall, this week's games were a little more disappointing from the aspect of there not being any upsets, but these were some dramatic games with no real blowouts other than Alabama shutting down Florida State. This does, however, set up some fascinating semifinal matchups. Kansas State was a BCS title contender until losing to Baylor, but they've taken care of business to the semifinals and get a tough Notre Dame defense to contend with. Meanwhile we also get a fascinating SEC matchup between Bama and Florida on the other side of the bracket. While this guarantees an SEC team in the title game, those SEC teams did win a pair of tough games to get this far in the playoffs.

My original playoff setup called for games next week, but in thinking about it, I'm taking a week off to allow the athletes time to spend with their families for Christmas and still have a week to prepare for semifinal games. It will push the championship back a week, but these students and their families come first, even if this is just a simulation of a playoff.

I'm going to be on break from writing until later on this coming week for mine and Nathaniel's final set of NFL picks for the regular season, and maybe we'll do something for the playoffs, but that has yet to be seen. Until then, I hope you have a very Merry Christmas!