Can Ohio State play Texas A&M as a College Football Playoff play-in game?
With Ohio State and Texas A&M having openings on their schedule, can the two College Football Playoff hopefuls play each other on Saturday?
Ohio State had their game with Michigan canceled and Texas A&M had their game with Ole Miss postponed and now social media is trying to pit the Buckeyes against the Aggies.
No. 4 Ohio State and No. 5 Texas A&M would be a fun game to watch and carries a lot of College Football Playoff implications, but should the game be scheduled? And would the SEC and Big Ten even allow it?
For starters, there’s no reason for Ohio State to want to schedule Texas A&M when they are already ranked ahead of them and in the top four of the College Football Playoff rankings. They don’t need to enhance their resume just because Twitter wants it to happen.
While callers to the Paul Finebaum Show will scream into their phones that Ohio State ain’t played nobody, they aren’t going to risk their playoff berth to play Texas A&M on short notice just because.
Ohio State doesn’t need to play a game for the sake of playing a game when the Big Ten will either change their rule about playing an arbitrary number of games to be eligible for the Big Ten Championship Game and winning the conference isn’t a prerequisite to making the playoff anyway.
Texas A&M, however, would welcome Ohio State to College Station because it gives them an opportunity to add a win over Ohio State to go with their win over Florida. Naturally, if the No. 5 team beats No. 4, they’ll be in the top four. Ohio State would probably be a 10-14-point favorite over Texas A&M on a neutral field so even though they are separated by one spot in the ranking, the difference between the two teams isn’t that close.
It’s totally different from BYU and Coastal Carolina scheduling a game last week when a New Year’s Six berth is on the line and they don’t get a seat at the playoff and a totally different thing when you’re eating at the Power Five table.
So while it makes no sense for Ohio State and a lot of sense for Texas A&M, the prevailing point is the Big Ten and SEC already said they are only allowing conference-only games, so the entire conversation is a moot point.
The Big Ten already nixed Nebraska’s attempt to schedule Tennessee-Chattanooga when the Huskers had their game with Purdue canceled. This is nothing more than social media and talk radio fodder, but I can understand why fans would want it because it would be a fun game.
If only we had an eight-team College Football Playoff and we’d get to see these two teams play in a first-round game.
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