Final thoughts (and a prediction) for both SEC opening-round Playoff games

As much as I love actual Christmas, in my book, college football Christmas is going to give it a run for its money this weekend.

The 1st round of the College Football Playoff will begin on Friday at 8 pm ET with Indiana-Notre Dame, and on Saturday, we’ll have SMU-Penn State at noon, Clemson-Texas at 4 pm and Tennessee-Ohio State at 8 pm. It should be a 28-hour stretch wherein even the most traditional college football purists — the ones who long for the BCS and media polls to crown a champion — admit something.

The 12-team Playoff is a ton of fun.

And for what it’s worth, it’ll still be a ton of fun even if we get duds in 3 of 4 games. While I don’t believe that’ll be the case — 3 of the 4 games have single-digit spreads — it’s worth remembering that we’ll have another awesome 28-hour stretch of Playoff games 10 days later on New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day. Cheers to that.

For today, we’ll just stick with the 2 Playoff games involving SEC teams in the 1st round. Let’s dig into those matchups, with some final thoughts and a prediction for Clemson-Texas (-12.5) and Tennessee-Ohio State (-7.5):

All eyes will be on the Mukuba Bowl in Austin

As in “Andrew Mukuba,” AKA the Austin native and Clemson transfer who has been a massive part of Texas’ top-ranked pass defense in FBS. Dabo Swinney himself dubbed Saturday the “Mukuba Bowl,” and with good reason. He was a surprising transfer last offseason after he spent 3 years becoming one of Clemson’s most important players. Earlier in the week, Mukuba told the Greenville News about that decision, and he offered up a candid response about his former team:

“My time there at Clemson, I just felt like I wasn’t really getting better,” Mukuba said. “I wasn’t being pushed enough to where I could reach my potential and my peak. The program wasn’t where it needed to be for me and the whole team to be successful. After my junior year, I felt like it was the same thing. After that, it was only right for me to transfer.”

That’s … significant. Clemson has been many things in the past decade, but it has rarely been called out for an inability to develop. It’s hard to argue with Mukuba’s logic when you consider that he became an even better player during this past season at Texas, who’s a betting favorite to win it all (via DraftKings). He and Jim Thorpe Award winner Jahdae Barron led a Texas secondary that allowed only 4 passing touchdowns (compared to 19 interceptions) in 13 games. The Longhorns surrendered just 2 games of 200 passing yards, both of which were blowout Texas wins in which the opposing quarterback was benched.

Mukuba will be someone to watch on Saturday. Will he be a bit too fired up and over-pursue ball carriers in space? Will Clemson try to attack him downfield if he’s in 1-on-1 coverage? Alternatively, will he deliver a punishing hit on Cade Klubnik like we saw him do in the SEC Championship on Gunner Stockton?

That’s the type of presence that Mukuba can have. For what it’s worth, that hit was perfectly legal upon review.

Mukuba’s comments will surely be used as bulletin board material for Clemson. The question is whether that’ll matter. After all, the Tigers averaged 12.7 points per game in their 3 losses this season, and they beat only 1 FBS team with 8 wins (SMU in the ACC Championship). Mukuba will have a big say in continuing that trend.

The one thing I’d be worried about if I’m a Texas fan is …

“Quinn Ewers getting time against that Clemson defensive front.”

Clemson might not have been able to get to LaNorris Sellers or Kevin Jennings, but the last time we saw Ewers, he struggled to step up in the pocket and escape pressure. It felt like the neutralizer in the SEC Championship after Texas had UGA dominated in total yards throughout the day. Ewers didn’t have his Lombardi Award-winning left tackle, Kelvin Banks Jr. Banks is expected to return after he went down with an ankle injury against Texas A&M. That night in College Station, redshirt freshman Trevor Goosby filled in admirably and limited that explosive A&M defensive line to a sack-less evening, but it was a different story in the SEC Championship.

If Banks is back to full strength, that’d be huge for Texas and Ewers, who has been working through an ankle injury of his own that he suffered against Kentucky. Even if Ewers is feeling like the best, most mobile version of himself, he won’t be Sellers or Jennings outside the pocket.

Consider that all the more reason why Steve Sarkisian’s familiarity with Ewers will be pivotal. It’s no secret that Texas has relied heavily on throws behind the line of scrimmage. Getting Matthew Golden and Ryan Wingo in space would be ideal, and the always reliable tight end Gunnar Helm figures to have a significant role in overcoming Clemson’s strength up front.

It’ll be interesting to see if Sarkisian has any planned 1st-half packages for Arch Manning. I say “planned” because we saw him used only once as a decoy against Georgia after he had a 4th-down touchdown run against A&M the previous week. Manning is the more mobile threat, yet Sarkisian didn’t turn to him when the ground game struggled to do anything against UGA. Would a “win-or-go-home” scenario prompt more urgency if that repeats itself? We don’t know.

All we know is that Ewers will have his work cut out for him against a Clemson defense that can make veteran quarterbacks uncomfortable in the pocket.

Who’s the biggest Clemson fan this weekend? It’s not Tyler from Spartanburg; it’s ACC commissioner Jim Phillips

Why? Well, let’s just think about the optics at stake if Clemson can’t pull off the upset as a 12-point underdog. That would mean the ACC champ went 0-3 against the SEC this year, but it still made the Playoff. For all of Phillips’ unbiased opinions about why the ACC deserved more respect from the selection committee, that’d be an awfully tough look for the conference.

Knowing Phillips, though, he’d spin that into some sort of argument about why Clemson was somehow at a disadvantage in all 3 games. I’d be here for all of his spin zones if and when the ACC is without a team in the quarterfinals.

“Hey, we’ve got Bill Belichick!”

And a prediction … Texas 24, Clemson 10

Is there a world in which Klubnik shines in his return to The Lone Star State? For sure. This is a legacy game for the Clemson quarterback. If he has things cooking early, don’t be surprised. But of all the units that I trust to figure things out, Texas’ defense tops that list. The Longhorns have too much defensive firepower to allow Klubnik to pick them apart for 60 minutes.

Even if this isn’t a vintage game from Ewers — a 1st-quarter interception is always on the table with him in 2024 — this should still be a game in which Sarkisian’s ability to scheme wins out. He’ll find ways to get a few of those big throwing windows for Ewers, and Texas will follow the blueprint that has worked all season. That is, get a halftime lead, sit on it and let the defense do the heavy lifting.

The Longhorns will earn another trip to Mercedes-Benz Stadium, and thankfully, Georgia isn’t who’ll await them (at least not yet).

The X-factor for Tennessee is … Boo Carter

I expect that we’ll see an All-American matchup on the outside, with Jermod McCoy taking on true freshman receiver Jeremiah Smith. That’ll be huge in determining this outcome.

But Carter is the X-factor for Tennessee because he figures to draw plenty of snaps lined up across from Ohio State slot receiver Emeka Egbuka. The veteran wideout cooled off considerably in the latter half of the season, but he’s always a threat to hit a chunk play, especially if Will Howard wants to attack a true freshman like Carter. Egbuka has 15 catches on 3rd down this season. If Tennessee defensive coordinator Tim Banks wants to send pressure in those spots — he could also trust his dominant defensive line to get home with 4 against a banged-up Ohio State offensive line — that’ll magnify Carter’s discipline in coverage.

Carter’s presence could also be felt in the return game. He has shown flashes of being a game-changer as a punt returner down the stretch. In a game in which field position figures to play a monumental role, Carter giving the Vols a couple of short fields would be a welcome sight against the nation’s No. 1 scoring defense. Alternatively, a freshman making the wrong decision with either a muffed fair catch or avoiding a return on a ball that stops at the goal line could prove costly.

And who knows? With Tennessee down to 6 scholarship wide receivers, 3 of whom are coming off injuries they suffered in the Vanderbilt game, maybe we see Carter’s versatility used on offense after his prolific high school career as a 3-way player. No matter what, Carter will be called upon to do a lot on Saturday night.

I’m hopeful that Nico Iamaleava’s weapons will be healthier than initially feared

Coming out of that aforementioned Vandy game, yeah, I worried that the Vols would be banged up after Bru McCoy, Dont’e Thornton Jr., Dylan Sampson and Squirrel White all left with injuries. Fortunately, the practice reports have been somewhat promising after the 3-week break. Sampson said that he feels “the best he has all season,” while McCoy was available to the media this week and Thornton was looking like himself at practice (H/T Adam Sparks). White reportedly had a flexible brace on his arm during the media viewing portion of practice after he left the Vandy game in a sling.

Josh Heupel has been understandably vague about each. Being available doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll all be at 100%. McCoy’s injury was a non-contact hamstring injury that flared up, and as great as Sampson says he feels, a guy with 256 carries on the season has more bumps and bruises than any of us will ever experience.

But all things considered, this isn’t about who feels the healthiest. It’s about who looks the healthiest. If Tennessee makes those injuries look like an afterthought, that’ll be as much as Iamaleava can ask for.

It’s Iamaleava who’ll be tasked with making the best of whatever arsenal he has to work with. A healthy Sampson would certainly be a start, but don’t overlook the importance of Iamaleava trusting his options on 3rd down against this loaded Ohio State defense, which was good but not great in those spots (No. 33 in FBS). That’s not to say that Iamaleava will be consistently trusted to throw on 3rd-and-7 or longer. He attempted only 37 passes in those situations — Garrett Nussmeier had 63 such attempts — and Tennessee ran the ball 30 times. Those are the spots when Iamaleava can’t afford a mistake that would give Ohio State a short field.

Iamaleava’s ability to avoid interceptions has quietly been an asset for a Tennessee offense that has been more conservative than initially expected. He has been picked off only once in the past 5 games, and during that post-Alabama stretch in November, Iamaleava ranked No. 15 in FBS in quarterback rating with an 11-1 TD-INT ratio. If you believe that Indiana quarterback Kurtis Rourke wasn’t quite at 100% coming off the hand injury, you could make a case that Iamaleava is playing better than any quarterback that the Buckeyes have faced since Penn State’s Drew Allar.

Vols fans can only hope that Ohio State doesn’t treat Iamaleava like it treated Allar.

If Ohio State loses this game, 2 things will be true

The 1st is that with a loss, Ohio State’s 1-13 record vs. SEC teams in bowl games will be referenced. That’s obvious.

And the other thing the attention will shift to will be how soon Ryan Day is fired. I believe Day is gone if Ohio State fails to win a national title. That would’ve been different if he could’ve finally gotten over the hump against Michigan, but that didn’t happen. Instead, he’s trying to avoid suffering consecutive losses to close the season against teams that ranked outside the top 100 in percentage of returning production. That can’t be how Ohio State and its $20 million roster watch its 2024 season end … right?

Let’s make a prediction.

And a prediction … Ohio State 21, Tennessee 17

These are 2 of the 4 best defenses in the country, so I’ll take the under on 45.5 points. The most stunning result would be watching the Tennessee defense get trucked and look lifeless in the 2nd half. Why? If Ohio State suffers a similar fate, we’ll point to this team not mentally recovering after the Michigan embarrassment.

But there’s something that gives me pause with picking the upset. Heupel is 8-9 in true road games at Tennessee. His best road win, I’d argue, was when the Vols stomped eventual SEC West champs LSU in Death Valley in 2022. Granted, that was before Jayden Daniels took off. It was still a beatdown of a talented team.

This is a different beast for Tennessee. Ohio State had 3 weeks to stew about how that Michigan game played out. Even if there is a considerable amount of orange in The Horseshoe, Tennessee is still tasked with doing something it hasn’t done since 2006 — beat an AP Top-10 team on the road. The Vols haven’t beaten an AP Top-10 team in a true road game post-October since 2003 at Miami. That’s significant, because rankings are far more established in a game like this compared to when that 2006 win at No. 10 Georgia happened (Oct. 7).

That drought will live on. Tennessee will hang with Ohio State for 60 minutes thanks to Sampson and that elite defense, but ultimately, this game ends with a late Tennessee drive coming up short. The Buckeyes avoid disaster, and the Vols’ national championship path ends in Columbus.

Connor O'Gara

Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.