Would Arizona State rather play Texas or Clemson in College Football Playoff quarterfinals?
With the first-ever 12-team College Football Playoff kicking off this weekend, the Arizona State Sun Devils are in a position nobody outside of their locker room thought they would be in.
After stunning the college football world and winning the Big 12, Arizona State (11-2) has a first-round bye in the CFP and can sit back and watch — and more importantly, scout — Saturday's games.
The game Kenny Dillingham and his staff will be watching is No. 12 Clemson at No. 5 Texas, which kicks off at 2 p.m. MST. The Sun Devils will play the winner of Clemson-Texas in the Peach Bowl on New Year's Day.
So which team would Arizona State rather play?
Clemson is the obvious answer, but the Sun Devils will likely be heavy underdogs against either team. ESPN's FPI gives Arizona State just a 6.5% chance of making the national championship game, and the betting experts have their odds at +5500 to win the national title.
Don't Mess With Texas' Defense
Texas (11-2) is favored by 13.5 points over Clemson, and is the favorite — along with Oregon — to win the CFP national championship. The Longhorns have the second-best scoring defense in college football, allowing just 12.5 points per game.
The Longhorns also have a potent offense, but they have struggled to score points the past two games — a 17-7 win over Texas A&M and a 22-19 OT loss to Georgia in the SEC championship. Quarterback Quinn Ewers has had a strong season with 25 TD passes and 9 interceptions, but he has been facing mounting pressure with backup Arch Manning breathing down his neck.
Manning, a redshirt freshman, started three games for Texas this season and flashed his enormous potential. He passed for 939 yards and 9 touchdowns, and rushed for 100 yards and 4 TDs. Texas fans are clamoring for Manning to play, and Ewers will likely either enter the NFL Draft after this season or transfer to another school. When asked about the possibility of Saturday being Ewers' final home game with Texas, coach Steve Sarkisian gave a testy answer.
"No hypotheticals. I'm not doing hypotheticals," Sarkisian replied. "I'll answer the question as it pertains to his impact (this season). I'm not going to answer the question with a hypothetical. So, do you want to rephrase the question?"
The Longhorns' defense should carry them to victory over Clemson, but questions about their offense will continue to swirl as long as Ewers remains behind center.
Clemson Lowest-Ranked Team In CFP
Clemson (11-3) got into the playoff field with an automatic bid after beating SMU 34-31 in the ACC championship game. They were slotted at No. 16 in the final College Football Playoff Rankings, but bumped No. 11 Alabama from the playoffs because of the automatic bid.
The Tigers were hammered by Louisville at home 33-21 on Nov. 2 and lost to South Carolina 17-14 in their regular season finale.
Judging by how badly SMU is being beaten by Penn State in Saturday's early CFP game — 28-0 at publish time — the ACC was not strong this season, and Clemson fares little chance of hanging with Texas.
Either way, Dillingham is focused on his team and preparing them for a situation they have never been in.
"We're not preparing for [the Peach Bowl] yet, we're preparing for us. We're trying to fix some things that we've got to get better at, trying to fine-tune some things from our perspective and get our condition level back up," Dillingham said earlier this week.
"We haven't played a four-quarter football game. When we play in the Peach Bowl it will have been six weeks since we played four quarters of football. Our starters didn't play in the last quarter of the UA game, they didn't play in the last quarter of [the Big 12 championship], so it's going to be literally six weeks since they played four full quarters of football ... that's the number one thing I'm trying to balance right now is how do you keep these guys in conditioning shape when it's going to be six weeks since they've played a real football game."