College Football Playoff: How a 16-team bracket would play out

6. Ohio State Buckeyes vs. 11. LSU Tigers

The Jekyll and Hyde act of the Ohio State Buckeyes may have ultimately cost them a spot in the College Football Playoff this season, the second-straight year that the one-loss winners of the Big Ten have been on the outside looking in. However, with a blowout loss to Purdue on their résumé and some other less than impressive wins as well, it’s hard to make the case for them being higher in the final rankings than they are.

Those Buckeyes are matched up with the 11th-seeded LSU Tigers in this game, a team who stumbled a bit at the end of the season after picking up some marquee wins in the middle of the year. After upending both Georgia and Mississippi State, LSU was blanked by Alabama, got tested by a bad Arkansas team and then lost in the wild seven-overtime thriller in the final week against Texas A&M.

Considering that the backbone of what LSU likes to do is win with their elite defense and then thinking about what Ohio State did to Michigan in the regular-season finale, the Buckeyes may seem like the smart pick for this game. However, this LSU defense has far more big-time playmakers than even the Wolverines and still enough talent on offense to make plays and control the game.

This one would go down to the wire, but with Dwayne Haskins pressing late in the game, he’d make a mistake trying to throw on guys like Grant Delpit and Greedy Williams and force an ultimately game-sealing turnover that would give the Tigers an upset win and allow them to advance.

Prediction: Ohio State 27, LSU 28