Ohio State is the No. 8 ranked team in the playoff rankings, so how can the Buckeyes make the four-team College Football Playoff?
So you’re saying there’s a chance. Of course, Ohio State has a chance to make the College Football Playoff even if the Buckeyes need a couple of things to work out in their favor on Championship Saturday. Ohio State doesn’t entirely control their destiny as the No. 8 team, but it’s pretty close.
For Ohio State to have a chance at returning to the Playoff for the third time in four years, it all starts with the Big Ten Championship Game against Wisconsin, obviously. Ohio State faces an undefeated Wisconsin team that’s ranked fourth in the rankings. A win over Wisconsin knocks them out of the top four but it’s not a given it would be a straight swap of Big Ten teams. At the very minimum, Ohio State needs to win tonight, but before the game begins, they can root for a couple of scenarios.
Oklahoma needs to beat TCU
This may sound counter-intuitive. Oklahoma is No. 3 and TCU is No. 11 so it would look like Ohio State needs TCU to win because they are ranked below Ohio State. However, they need Oklahoma to win to put an asterisk next to their 15-point home loss to the Sooners, so their loss doesn’t look as bad. Should TCU beat Oklahoma, Ohio State’s resume takes a knock before they even set foot on the field.
Style Points
It’s not just enough for them to beat Wisconsin. The eye test is an important and unquantifiable element of making the field. They have two ugly losses on their resume which drowns out their quality wins over Penn State and Michigan State. The 15-point home loss to Oklahoma hurts, but what could kill them is their 55-24 loss at a 7-5 Iowa team. There’s never been a two-loss team in the playoff and there’s never been a playoff team that had a loss that bad from the regular season. So they have two big strikes against them before anything happens.
So how can they overcome them?
Run up the score against an undefeated Wisconsin team and leave little doubt in the minds of the committee that Ohio State is one of the four best teams in the country. If the Buckeyes can score 40-plus points against the No. 1 defense of the Badgers and win by more than three scores, that could be the extra boost they need to get in.
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The SEC and the ACC Championship Games have little bearing on Ohio State’s playoff chances. The winner of Auburn-Georgia is in and the winner of Clemson-Miami is in. If Ohio State wants to avoid things getting chaotic, they need Clemson to win, because a Miami win could still leave the door open for a two-loss non-champion Clemson to make it.