Ohio State will face off against Clemson for a college football playoff semifinal on New Year’s Day in the Sugar Bowl, but Tigers head coach Dabo Swinney seemed to indicate he doesn’t believe the Buckeyes should be a playoff squad.
According to the ballots printed by USA TODAY Sports in the Amway Coaches Poll, Swinney didn’t have Ohio State in his top three, four or five. Nope. He had them ranked all the way down to 11th! ELEVENTH!! That seems a little harsh on the surface when you consider Ohio State won all of the games it played. Of course, the Buckeyes only played six games in 2020.
Always interesting to look through the final coaches’ poll ballots. Dabo apparently doesn’t think much of the @OhioStateFB team he’s preparing to face in the CFP. pic.twitter.com/wwAqPKYfq9
— Dave Revsine (@BTNDaveRevsine) December 21, 2020
It seems like this is definitely Swinney and not a member of the Clemson public relations staff, per The Athletic’s Grace Raynor:
2 things:
1. This matches what Dabo Swinney has been saying all year re: # of games mattering.
2. Swinney casts his own vote every week. It's not a PR person. Dabo in 2018 said sometimes he calls in at 3 a.m. "If I'm gonna put my name on it, I should try to be informed." https://t.co/eVK9zgSkB3— Grace Raynor (@gmraynor) December 21, 2020
Swinney’s vote is definitely an outlier:
Dabo Swinney was the only one of 61 voting head coaches to leave Ohio State outside the top-10 on his coaches poll ballot. He had the Buckeyes at No. 11: https://t.co/fEkH9DgCU7
— Joey Kaufman (@joeyrkaufman) December 21, 2020
We don’t know the reasoning yet, but Swinney has talked recently to Rich Eisen about how teams in the Big Ten played fewer games and that could be a factor in choosing who goes to the playoffs:
So is it a statement about how Ohio State played fewer games and that’s a penalty against them? Some shade and bulletin board material ahead of their game? Hmm.
