Ohio State stays in the field after losing to Michigan and Arizona State steps up to win the Big 12 and earns an opening-round bye in the final USA TODAY Sports College Football Playoff bracketology of the regular season.

The nine Bowl Subdivision conference championship games set to be played on Friday and Saturday will settle the debate once and for all before the playoff selection committee unveils the final rankings early on Sunday afternoon.

The Buckeyes’ fourth loss in a row to the Wolverines sends them from a potential top-four seed to a rematch with Indiana in the opening round. Ohio State is projected to be one of four host teams in this first round, joining Notre Dame, Georgia and Penn State.

SMU winning the ACC would be great news for Alabama, which is poised to be the last team in the field should the Mustangs beat Clemson. That would send the Crimson Tide into a must-see matchup in South Bend against the Fighting Irish.

And in the Big 12, Arizona State is projected to beat Iowa State and rise above Boise State in the final rankings. The Sun Devils would then finish among the top four conference champions and have a bye into the quarterfinals.

WINNERS AND LOSERS: Ohio State, Alabama boosted by CFP committee

BOWL PROJECTIONS: Alabama joins playoff, while Texas, SMU move up

College Football Playoff bracket projection

The Big Ten and the SEC lead the way with four teams in the bracket: Oregon, Ohio State, Penn State and Indiana from the former and Texas, Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama from the latter.

A ninth spot goes to Notre Dame, which has won 10 in a row and is playing by far the best football of the program’s Marcus Freeman era. Rounding out the field are SMU, Boise State from and Arizona State.

As noted, a Clemson win against SMU would very likely knock out Alabama. While Arizona State is projected to pass Boise State with a win, the same can’t necessarily be said of Iowa State should it top the Sun Devils.

Four teams to watch

Army

The Black Knights’ odds of reaching the playoff low given the ranked matchup between Boise State and UNLV to settle the Mountain West. Army could’ve moved into the lead in the Group of Five by upsetting Notre Dame two weeks ago. Another avenue closed when Tulane lost to Memphis, robbing the Black Knights of a potential ranked win.

South Carolina

In the end, the Gamecocks will be unable to overcome losses to the Alabama and Mississippi. Those head-to-head results overshadowed a torrid run through the second half of the regular season that included three wins against ranked competition.

Miami

Miami’s chances of reaching the playoff come in somewhere between slim and none after losing to Syracuse to fall out of the ACC title game. That erased one question that loomed over the conference: Could the Hurricanes get into the playoff at 11-2 with a loss to SMU? Obviously, any chance the ACC had of sending two teams into the bracket were evaporated by Miami’s second loss.

Indiana

The Hoosiers benefited from some anarchy in the SEC to stay a rock-solid playoff pick even after November’s one-sided loss to Ohio State. But Indiana also earned this chance by dominating nearly every team on this year’s schedule, closing things out with a 66-0 rout of rival Purdue.

PHOENIX — A Mexican man was sentenced to over seven years in prison for smuggling firearms and other weapons out of Arizona, authorities said.

Jesus Angel Vasquez Balganon, 33, exported the firearms between March of 2018 and January of 2021, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona.

Authorities recovered some of those firearms in Mexico. Vasquez Balganon also exported ammunition, weapons components and accessories, prosecutors said.

How was Mexican man who smuggled guns from Arizona caught?

Authorities arrested Vasquez Balganon when he tried smuggling high-capacity magazines at the Nogales port of entry on April 6, 2021.

Exporting firearms, weapons components, magazines, ammunition and accessories like these require a valid license, which Vasquez Balganon and his co-conspirators did not have, prosecutors said.

They also had no lawful authority whatsoever to bring these items from Arizona to Mexico.

Officers with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol found a hidden shopping bag with 30 AR-15 guns with 30-round, 5.56 caliber high-capacity magazines, prosecutors said. He told officers he expected to be paid $100 for smuggling the weapons.

Prior to this arrest, he had a total of 67 firearms he had exported or tried to export. Some of these weapons included a machine gun, a Century Arms WASR rifle and an AK-103 style firearm.

In addition to that, he also was connected to smuggling or trying to smuggle 20,000 rounds of ammunition, 208 magazines and ammunition links to Mexico.

Vasquez Balganon was also guilty of money laundering, prosecutors said.

He told authorities he transferred over $20,000 from a U.S. bank to a Mexican bank from February 2019 to March 2021 to pay for the illegal smuggling.

What charges did Mexican man who smuggled guns from Arizona face?

Vasquez Balganon pleaded guilty to smuggling goods from the U.S. and international money laundering on March 14, prosecutors said.

After his 85-month prison sentence, he will also spend three years of supervised release. Additionally, the court served him a $97,229 order of forfeiture.

Rarely are head coaches fired after one season. The Wildcats were wise not to join the super-short list.

Originally Published: December 3, 2024 at 11:39 AM PST