Finally, we have answers.

Would SMU get left out in favor of 9-3 Alabama? How much would conference championship losers get punished? What would the first-round Playoff games look like?

Well, we have answers.

The first 12-team Playoff is set. Here’s what it looks like:

What should we make of that?

Here are the biggest takeaways from the field of 12:

SMU is in, Alabama is out … as it should be

Sorry, Alabama fans.

But if you believe that SMU losing in the ACC Championship on a last-second field goal should’ve knocked out the Mustangs in favor of the idle Tide, ask yourself this: How much arguing for Alabama in the Playoff did you do after the 21-point loss to 6-win Oklahoma? Not much. Better yet, how much arguing did you do that Alabama should be ranked ahead of a 1-loss SMU team when that happened? Not much, either.

That’s the issue. SMU running the table in ACC play isn’t the same as running the table in SEC play. We can agree on that. But going 11-2 with field-goal losses to ranked teams wasn’t some Group of 5 résumé.

And here’s the other thing: So in this world in which Alabama should’ve made the field — according to Nick Saban’s unbiased opinion — how many losses would’ve been too many? Four? And should another one of those losses have come against a 6-6 team? At some point, Alabama couldn’t just ignore the losses.

The selection committee didn’t ignore that. It did the thing few thought was possible. As a result, Alabama will be on the outside of the Playoff picture for just the 3rd time since its inception in 2014 (2019, 2022 and 2024).

The biggest non-SMU/Alabama development was ____________.

“Boise State getting a 3-seed.”

How about that? If you had told anyone in August that a Group of 5 team would get a first-round bye, you would’ve been laughed out of the room. Boise State took care of Top-25 UNLV and as a result, it stayed ahead of Big 12 champion Arizona State, which blew out Iowa State in its conference title game.

The Broncos won’t get to host a game on the blue turf, but Ashton Jeanty and Co. will play in a Playoff quarterfinal game in the Fiesta Bowl against the winner of SMU at Penn State. That’s not a bad matchup considering that neither SMU nor Penn State have that “elite” win on their résumés.

Boise State finishing ahead of the ACC and Big 12 champ should give some hope to Mountain West and AAC teams in ways that we really didn’t see in the 10 years of the 4-team Playoff era, wherein Cincinnati was the lone Group of 5 team to make the field.

A new era, it is.

The first-round matchup I can’t wait to see is _____________.

It’s gotta be Tennessee at Ohio State.

That 8-9 matchup will be as juicy as it gets. Both teams could be defined by their injuries. Ohio State is banged up on the offensive line while Tennessee is banged up at the offensive skill positions after Bru McCoy, Squirrel White, Dont’e Thornton and Dylan Sampson all left the Vanderbilt game. It’ll be interesting to see which team benefits the most from the 3-week layoff.

Tennessee’s 2 losses both came in true road games. Of course, Ohio State’s most recent showing was in The Horseshoe against Michigan, and we know how that went. Both teams will have their respective injury reports dissected ad nauseam over the next couple of weeks.

Full strength or not, this is the type of matchup that we hoped that the 12-team Playoff would yield.

The thing I’m wondering about is _________.

“Did 5-seed Texas get a better draw than 1-seed Oregon?

Think about it. Texas will face 12-seed Clemson, which finally just beat an FBS team with 8 wins. Also of note, Clemson went 0-2 vs. the SEC, and Texas’ only losses came against No. 2 seed Georgia. The Longhorns, if they can make that an 0-3 mark for Clemson vs. the SEC, would get to face Arizona State in a quarterfinal matchup.

Oregon, meanwhile, will face the winner of that aforementioned Tennessee-Ohio State game. Are both of those teams tougher than Clemson and Arizona State? That’s debatable. Lord knows nobody should overlook Arizona State after it went 11-1 with Sam Leavitt as the starter.

It’s at least a conversation. Oregon could possibly have a path to the title game that consists of Ohio State in a rematch and a Texas team that just earned the top Playoff berth. Who knows? Maybe Oregon could have to beat Penn State again. Two rematches and a date with Sarkisian would be quite the challenge.

It’s great that we can focus on the fun now

I’m here for it. With all due respect to the 3-loss SEC teams, Miami and SMU, but I’m bubble fatigued. It was always going to be more interesting to discuss the actual matchups and not the fringe teams that wouldn’t have had any business sniffing the field in the previous system.

The fun starts on Dec. 20. In case you need a reminder of the fun that’s in store, look at this 27 hours to kick off the new 12-team Playoff:

It’ll be interesting to see 3 northern hosts. How many snow games will we get? And will we see a team like SMU or Tennessee pull off an upset in northern first-round matchups?

Here’s hoping that the slate gives us the drama we got at the end of conference championship Saturday instead of the snoozers that kicked it off.

Either way, let the 12-team Playoff era begin.