College Football Playoff primer: Everything you need to know

For all those folks that never know what they’ll be doing on New Year’s Eve day, the College Football Playoff always has your back.

The College Football Playoff announced Sunday the four teams that will battle for the national title, with the semifinals set for New Year’s Eve day ahead of the College Football Playoff title being decided on Jan. 9 at SoFi Stadium.

Here’s a rundown of everything you need to know about the College Football Playoff, USC and UCLA‘s bowl games and the upcoming Heisman Trophy ceremony.

Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh celebrates after defeating Purdue in the Big Ten championship game Sunday.

(Michael Conroy / Associated Press)

No real shockers here. Georgia, Michigan, Texas Christian and Ohio State were selected to play in the College Football Playoff Semifinals at the end of month. For the first time, two teams from the Big Ten made it to CFP semfinals, with Ohio State jumping back into the top four following USC’s loss to Utah in the Pac-12 title game.

Georgia secured its No. 1 spot with a 50-30 victory over Louisiana State in the Southeastern Conference championship game on Saturday. Michigan defeated Purdue 43-22 for the Big Ten title, going 13-0 on a season for the first time. TCU lost to Kansas State in overtime in the Big 12 title game Saturday.

Despite some nationally televised lobbying efforts by Alabama coach Nick Saban during Saturday night’s Big Ten championship game broadcast, Alabama will not be playing in the College Football Playoff semifinals. The No. 5 Crimson Tide will play No. 9 Kansas State in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 2 and No. 6 Tennessee will meet No. 7 Clemson in the Orange Bowl on Jan. 2.

Here’s a rundown of the semifinal matchups:

• Peach Bowl — No. 1 Georgia (13-0) vs. No. 4 Ohio State (11-1), 5 p.m., Dec. 30

• Fiesta Bowl — No. 2 Michigan (13-0) vs. No. 3 TCU (12-1), 1 p.m., Dec. 30

(Sam Farmer / Los Angeles Times)

SoFi Stadium in Inglewood will host the College Football Playoff championship game on Jan. 9 at 4:30 p.m. PST. It will mark the first College Football Playoff game ever held at the stadium, which opened in 2020.

The majority of game tickets are allocated to the two participating institutions and sold directly through each school. Many others will be available on the secondary market.

The College Football Playoff lists official ticket options on its website.

The College Football Playoff semifinals and championship game will be shown on ESPN and will be available for streaming on ESPN+. Here’s a look at the broadcast schedule:

• Fiesta Bowl — Dec. 31, 1 p.m., ESPN, ESPN+

• Peach Bowl — Dec. 31, 5 p.m., ESPN, ESPN+

• CFP championship — Jan. 9, 4:30 p.m. PST; ESPN, ESPN+

Top-seeded Georgia, the defending national champion, is the odds-on favorite to win the title again this year. The Bulldogs went undefeated in the SEC, which is no small feat. Michigan is the consensus No. 2 following its victory over rival Ohio State.

Here are the latest gambling odds and prop bets for the College Football playoff:

• VSIN.com

• Westgate

• DraftKings

USC quarterback Caleb Williams, left, talks coach Lincoln Riley during a win over Arizona State.

(Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)

USC (11-2) will play Tulane (11-2) in the Cotton Bowl Classic at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on Jan. 2 at 10 a.m. PST (ESPN). The Cotton Bowl Classic was always USC’s most likely destination following its Pac-12 title game loss to Utah on Friday.

Led by quarterback Michael Pratt and running back Tyjae Spears, Tulane defeated Central Florida 45-28 in the American Athletic Conference championship game Saturday.

USC sits at No. 8 in the latest College Football Playoff rankings with Tulane at No. 14.

Following their 9-3 campaign, the strongest of Chip Kelly‘s tenure in Westwood, the Bruins will play Pitt (8-4) in the Sun Bowl.

The game, at Sun Bowl Stadium in El Paso, will kick off at 11 a.m. PST on Dec. 30 (CBS).

UCLA was in contention to play in at least a New Year’s bowl until the final month of the season when back-to-back losses to Arizona and rival USC sent them down the rankings.

An aerial view of the 2017 Rose Bowl Game between USC and Penn State.

(Tournament of Roses / Getty Images)

Pac-12 champion Utah will play Penn State in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 2 at 2 p.m. PST. Utah defeated USC in the Pac-12 title game 47-24 to punch its ticket to his second straight Rose Bowl appearance.

Penn State’s only losses this season came to CFP semifinalists Michigan and Ohio State. At 10-2, the Nittany Lions are ranked No. 11 in the CFP rankings. No. 8 Utah (10-3), which beat USC twice, lost to UCLA and Oregon in conference play.

Utah lost to Ohio State in the Rose Bowl in January.

TCU quarterback Max Duggan passes against Kansas State on Oct. 22.

(Richard W. Rodriguez / Associated Press)

The finalists for the 2022 Heisman Trophy will be revealed Monday. USC quarterback Caleb Williams is considered a favorite to win, but there are several others in contention to be among the four finalists. Here’s a quick rundown of the players who could be heading to New York on Saturday to pick up some very rare hardware:

• Caleb Williams (USC quarterback)

• CJ Stroud — Ohio State quarterback

• Max Duggan — TCU quarterback

• Stetson Bennett — Georgia quarterback

• Michael Penix Jr. Washington quarterback

• Bryce Young — Alabama quarterback

• Drake Maye — North Carolina quarterback

The 2022 Heisman Trophy ceremony will take place on Saturday, with ESPN’s live coverage of the event starting at 5 p.m. PST. The award usually isn’t revealed until the final 10 minutes of the broadcast.

USC running back Marcus Allen poses with the Heisman Trophy after winning the award on Dec. 6, 1981.

(Ron Frehm / Associated Press)

Officially, USC has six players who have won the Heisman Trophy. Reggie Bush, the last USC player to win the award in 2005, had his Heisman Trophy revoked by the Heisman Trust after the university was sanctioned in 2010 for NCAA violations.

There has been a movement for the NCAA and the Heisman Trust to reinstate Bush’s 2005 win, but so far those calls have gone nowhere.

The former USC players who still are listed as Heisman Trophy winners are: Mike Garrett (1965), O.J. Simpson (1968), Charles White (1979), Marcus Allen (1981), Carson Palmer (2002) and Matt Leinart (2004).

If Williams wins Saturday, the Trojans would tie Ohio State, Oklahoma and Notre Dame for the most Heisman Trophy wins at seven.

USC quarterback Caleb Williams runs the ball during a win over Notre Dame on Nov. 26.

(Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)

The USC quarterback is the favorite. Despite USC’s loss to Utah in the Pac-12 championship game, Williams has passed for 4,075 yards and 37 touchdowns while completing 66.1% of his attempts. He also has rushed for 372 yards and 10 touchdowns.

According to VSIN.com, Williams is the front-runner for the award at -2000 odds on the DraftKings Sportsbook. TCU quarterback Max Duggan is next on the board at +1200.

At this point, it would be safe to say anything other than a Williams Heisman win on Saturday would be considered a major surprise.

The NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel implemented changes to college football’s overtime rules in 2021. Only one game in the College Football Playoff era has gone into overtime — Alabama’s win over Georgia in the 2018 national title game. Five games during the Bowl Championship Series era were decided in overtime.

Here’s how overtime works in college football:

• A coin flip determines which team receives the ball first in overtime.

• Each team gets at least one possession in overtime and starts on the opponent’s 25-yard line.

• The team retains possession until it scores a touchdown or fails to achieve a first down.

• Teams are required to run a two-point conversion play when the game reaches a second overtime period (2021 rule change).

• If the game reaches a third overtime, teams will run alternating two-point plays instead of starting from the 25-yard line (2021 rule change).

• Each team receives one timeout for every overtime period. Timeouts from regulation do not carry over.

Times staff writer J. Brady McCollough contributed to this report.