Penn State is favored by 7.5 points over SMU, which mounted a furious rally in the ACC Championship before ultimately succumbing to Clemson. The game will be played at Penn State’s Beaver Stadium.

If the Nittany Lions advance to the quarterfinals, they would also be a heavy favorite against Boise State and Heisman Trophy candidate Ashton Jeanty at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.

Oregon’s prize for earning the No. 1 overall seed will be a Rose Bowl matchup with No. 9 Tennessee (10-2) or No. 8 Ohio State (10- 2). The Buckeyes and Ducks met on October 12 at Autzen Stadium, with Oregon holding on for a 32-31 victory.

According to ESPN’s Football Power Index, Ohio State is ranked third, Oregon sixth, Tennessee seventh, Penn State ninth, SMU 13th and Boise State as high as 25th.

According to CBS Sports’ Josh Pate, Penn State has “a slide ahead of them going into the semifinals.”

“Penn State is in the most advantaged position of anyone that has been in this postseason,” Pate said. “We are currently publishing figures. They will host a team from Dallas in a temperature of 15 degrees. …If they won this, they’d be playing a Boise State team…besides, both of those teams are overmatched. They would next face the Boise team that had earned a first-round bye. Guess which team would be more favored by two touchdowns there? Because this is not the team that benefits from a bye in the first round.

Pate called the new College Football Playoff format “pathetic.”

The five highest-ranked conference champions by the 13-person committee automatically qualified for the playoffs. The top four conference champions — Oregon, Georgia, Boise State and Arizona State — earned first-round byes.

“Since you have an automatic bye process in the format, you end up semi-penalizing your Big Ten Championship Game winner in Oregon,” Pate said.

The perceived favorable draw could be a blessing and a curse for Penn State coach James Franklin, who is 99-41 overall in his 11 seasons with the Nittany Lions but holds a career record 3-19 against top 10 opponents.

Penn State is 1-2 against ranked teams this season with the lone win coming against No. 20 Illinois. Boise State has a long history of slaying giants and is 3-0 all-time in the Fiesta Bowl.

The Nittany Lions are probably happy to draw SMU and Boise State, but the Broncos certainly aren’t upset about the board either.

“I think about the pressure on James Franklin,” Pate said. “Because for a very long time, we’ve been saying ‘you can’t win the big game, you can’t win the big game’. OK, well they played in the big game against Oregon yesterday. They failed, but now they’re in a position where they’re in the playoffs anyway. It’s expanded, that’s why they participate. But they are in the playoffs. If you were in the playoff bracket for yourself and you were Penn State, how would you set it up differently than it is now?

MORE NEWS AND ANALYSIS FROM WOOD STATE

FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Continue to follow our Boise State coverage on social media by liking us on Facebook and we follow Twitter.