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Tonight's game marks the first ever College Football Playoff championship game. The top four team as selected by the Playoff selection committee played in two playoff games a week and a half ago. The final two, the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Oregon Ducks will face off in Arlington, Texas this evening for the rights to the title "2014 Champion". Ohio State is looking for its first title since 2002 while Oregon is looking for their first title ever. The fourth seeded Ohio State Buckeyes made it to this point by defeating the number one seeded Alabama Crimson Tide in the Sugar Bowl, in come from behind fashion, by the score of 42 to 35. The number two seeded Oregon Ducks advanced by crushing the number three seed and defending champion Florida State Seminoles by a score of 59 to 20 in the Rose Bowl.
Oregon, led by Heisman Trophy winning quarterback Marcus Mariota, enters this game as a large favorite, by a full seven points. Oregon had one loss all season long but it came early in the season to Arizona by a score of 24 to 31. Oregon was able to once again face The Arizona Wildcats in the Pac-12 Championship game. This time things were much different with Oregon beating the Wildcats by a resounding score of 51 to 13 to take the Pac-12 title. That game marked the 11th time that the Ducks had scored 40 or more points this season before destroying Florida State in the playoff game. The Ducks offense will be missing wide receiver Daren Carrington who was suspended for this game after failing an NCAA drug test, reportedly testing positive for marijuana. Carrington has accounted for 14 receptions for 292 yards and 3 touchdowns in the Ducks last two games.
If not for the new playoff system the Buckeyes would most likely not have made it to the championship game after they dropped a game during the season to a poor Virginia Tech team. They have since ripped off 12 wins in a row including last weeks upset of Alabama. Much like Oregon, Ohio State has gotten to this point behind an offense that can score a lot of points, scoring 40 or more points 10 times including the playoff game. The Buckeyes are on their third string quarterback after losing starter Braxton Miller to injury in the preseason and J.T. Barrett to a broken ankle in the final regular-season game against Michigan. In stepped third stringer Cardale Jones who not only won the Big Ten title over Wisconsin behind center but also led his team to a surprising upset of the number one team in country in the first round ever of the college playoffs.
- TV: ESPN
- ONLINE STREAM: espn.go.com (HERE)
- TIME: Monday, January 12th, 8:30 PM EST
- LOCATION: AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas
Please use this thread to discuss this evenings college championship game. As always providing or requesting of any links to illegal streams of any games is strictly prohibited on the Phinsider as well as all other SB Nation sites.