ATLANTA — Coming off a thrilling match at the SEC Championship on Saturday, the Bulldogs are ready to get back to work and test their skills in the first-ever College Football Playoff bracket.
The Bulldogs were labeled as the #2 seed, thus beginning the tournament in a bye-week. Their first game will ultimately be against the winner of the game between Notre Dame and Indiana.
The Bulldogs (11-2) won their third SEC title under coach Kirby Smart, but the trophy comes with an even bigger prize — a first-round bye in the new 12-team College Football Playoff. Georgia came into the game ranked fifth by the CFP, but now it is assured of playing in the Sugar Bowl quarterfinal game on New Year’s Day in pursuit of its third national title in four seasons.
If it were only as simple as the committee ranking the top 12 teams and placing them in the bracket. It's not.
The four highest-ranked conference champions earn byes into the quarterfinals, which will take place at bowl games around the country on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1. Those teams look to be Oregon (Big Ten), Georgia (SEC), Boise State (Mountain West) and Arizona State (Big 12).
The other eight teams play first-round games on Dec. 20 and 21 on the campus of the higher-seeded team. They will be bracketed in order of their ranking with one exception. Any of the five best conference champions not ranked in the top 12 are in the tournament. In this case, that means Clemson (CFP No. 17 last week) is in whether it hits the top 12 or not.
Other teams expected to be included in the final eight are Notre Dame, Texas, Penn State, Ohio State, Tennessee and Indiana.
That 12th team will probably be Alabama or SMU.
The quarterfinal winners move to the semifinals at the Orange and Cotton Bowls on Jan. 9-10. The national title game is Jan. 20 in Atlanta.
There's around $115 million at stake in the playoff and the money starts flowing when the bracket is revealed.
Each conference gets $4 million for every team that makes the final 12, the another $4 million for those that make the quarterfinals. It means teams that earn byes on Sunday are worth $8 million to their conferences without even playing a game.
Teams that advance to the semifinals mean $6 million more for their conference, then another $6 million for making the final.
The conferences all distribute the money differently. There's also a $300,000 stipend per team that is academically eligible for the playoffs. Teams making the playoff get $3 million to cover expenses for each round, too.
Before the bracket was revealed, the favorite is Oregon, at 13-4, according to BetMGM Sportsbook. The Ducks (13-0) are the nation's only undefeated team.
Even without the 12-team playoff, this has been an unusually hard season to handicap.
There was a major conference realignment (each of the Power Four title games included a newly arrived team — Texas to the SEC, Oregon to the Big Ten, SMU to the ACC, Arizona State to the Big 12), along with the growing influence of the transfer portal and players' ability to make money, all of which have shaken up rosters and uprooted “business as usual” in the sport.
It led to upsets almost every week this season, which, in turn, made the selection process for the 12-team playoff that much more difficult as it expanded from the four-team format launched in January 2015.
An injury to Georgia quarterback Carson Beck in the SEC title game could throw another wrench into things, but it's hard to count the Bulldogs out. Coach Kirby Smart's program is only a season removed from the second of back-to-back titles.
“We’re beat up, we’re tired, we’re mentally fatigued,” Smart said. “But I don’t know if I’ve ever had a more mentally tough team. They just keep coming, keep coming. They never say die.”