The Georgia Bulldogs will try to get back to Atlanta by way of Pasadena, Calif.
Georgia, which won the SEC championship at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Saturday, received the No. 3 seed in the College Football Playoff on Sunday and will face No. 2 seed Oklahoma in a national semifinal in the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day.
If Georgia beats Big 12 champion Oklahoma, the Bulldogs will return to Mercedes-Benz Stadium for the national championship game Jan. 8 against Clemson or Alabama.
Clemson, the ACC champion, was seeded No. 1 by the playoff selection committee and will meet No. 4 Alabama in the other semifinal, which will be played in New Orleans' Sugar Bowl, also on New Year's Day.
Despite not reaching the SEC title game, Alabama got the final spot in the four-team playoff over Big Ten champ Ohio State, giving the SEC half of the four-team field.
Georgia, seeking its first national championship since the 1980 season, is in the playoff for the first time in the event's four-year history. The Bulldogs will play Oklahoma for the first time ever in football and will play in the Rose Bowl for the first time since Jan. 1, 1943.
Both Georgia and Oklahoma are 12-1, and both won their conference championship games handily, the Bulldogs defeating Auburn 28-7 and the Sooners beating TCU 41-17.
The Rose Bowl will match Georgia's stellar defense against Oklahoma's prolific offense, which is led by senior quarterback Baker Mayfield, the favorite to win the Heisman Trophy. He has passed for 4,340 yards and 41 touchdowns this season and thrown just five interceptions.
"I couldn't be more excited for our team and especially our seniors ... to participate in the College Football Playoff," Georgia coach Kirby Smart said in a statement. "This is certainly a goal of every college football team, coach and player, and we are extremely honored.
"It also presents a great opportunity for our fans who have been so supportive of our team throughout the season. Playing in a venue with such rich tradition will be a rewarding experience, and it represents another step for our team and program. It also represents a great challenge playing a team like Oklahoma who has proven to be one of the country's most accomplished programs in college football history."
The Clemson-Alabama semifinal is a rematch of the past two seasons' national championships games. Clemson won 35-31 last season after Alabama won 45-40 the season before.
The most controversial issue facing the selection committee Sunday was whether to take Ohio State, a conference champion with two losses, or Alabama, a non-champ with one loss. Despite Ohio State's two wins over top-10 teams, compared to Alabama's none, the Buckeyes' second loss _a 31-point defeat to unranked Iowa _ apparently made the difference.
"As we saw Alabama play week in and week in out, the selection committee believed Alabama was the better football team," selection committee chairman Kirby Hocutt said on ESPN. "When we looked at Ohio State, when you looked at their resume it was impressive, but it wasn't enough for the selection committee to place them in above Alabama."
Alabama has reached the playoff in each of the event's four seasons.
By putting the Crimson Tide in the playoff this time along with Georgia, the committee chose two teams from one conference for the first time.
Two of the five power conferences, the Big Ten and the Pac-12, were shut out from the field.
The Big Ten had the Nos. 5 and 6 teams in the committee's final rankings, Ohio State and Wisconsin, respectively.
By putting Georgia and Alabama in different semifinals, the playoff committee left open the possibility of an all-SEC championship game in Atlanta. If that happens, Smart would coach against his former boss, Nick Saban. But both the Bulldogs and the Crimson Tide have to clear big hurdles to get there.
