The Book 2015: The College Football Playoff Championship Game

Hard to believe it's almost over. The Book and Phil Steele's pre season magazines have predicted in excess of 750 games and now it is all down to one, with the winner of the Clemson-Alabama tilt next Monday night in Arizona being crowned national champion.

So who are our two pigskin prognosticators (with some help from my magic formulas) taking for their title picks?

If you've kept track of what has gone on here all season, this one shouldn't be much of a surprise. Clemson hasn't ranked very highly in the power poll aspect of either all year while Alabama hasn't been ranked lower than second since early November, so the call is "Roll Tide."

Steele picks Bama by 11.2 points and The Book has the Tide by 10.4 points, both greater than the 7 or 7 1/2 points depending on what your neighborhood bookie of choice is giving. The Tide enters as the #1 team in both polls, with Clemson, despite the win over Oklahoma at #4 with Steele and #3 with The Book.

A few weeks ago, we took an alternative look at the ranking the teams using strength of record and as I say every year, it always seems to work out in the wash and this year will be no exception. In the SOR, Bama enters as #1 and Clemson at #2, and the winner guaranteed to claim the final the top spot.

Next week we will release the final rankings for the season, including all strength of record, Book and Steele and Massey composite rankings.

As we know, the bowls can be a terribly difficult to predict. Even Vegas only gets about 50% correct just picking favorites, so both magazines did about as expected, with the Book at 19-20-1 and Steele at 20-19-1 and with that, we have our champions...congratulations to Phil Steele who enters the final game with an 8 game lead over the Book and title of King!

Both will finish above .500 for the season, although not drastically so with Steele at 51.6% and The Book at 50.6%.

Enjoy the College Football Playoff Championship Game and Go Eagles!