College Football Playoff 2020: Simulating a 16-team bracket

16-team College Football Playoff quarterfinal: 3 Ohio State vs. 6 Oklahoma

One thing’s for sure: Oklahoma ain’t Northwestern.

The criticism of Ohio State getting into the College Football Playoff starts with the fact that the Buckeyes have played an extremely short schedule and, on top of that, have not been dominant while playing that schedule, even if they didn’t suffer a loss. And at the heart of that has been the performance of Justin Fields, who has been sporadic as a thrower, and a defense that has been more than generous in moments when the Buckeyes could’ve paid for such performances.

Both of those things are not good signs when you think about how Ryan Day’s team would match up with the Oklahoma Sooners. Though Spencer Rattler had his moments of obvious youth this season, he’s truly come into his own. This has been even more true with Rhamondre Stevenson providing a reliable complementary rushing attack and with the defense taking a big step forward. And all of that makes the Sooners a tough matchup for the Buckeyes.

Though it’s a limited sample size because they only played six games and played even fewer good offenses, I don’t believe the Buckeyes defense has the goods to slow down Oklahoma for 60 minutes. And with the sporadic play of Fields this season, in addition to Day’s reluctance to default to the run game that has been so effective, my advantage goes to the Sooners in this matchup.

Oklahoma wins, 45-34