The first edition of the College Football Playoff Rankings were released on Tuesday night, and if you’re an Ohio State football fan, you had to at least be mildly pleased with where the Buckeyes found themselves in the eyes of the CFP Committee.
We tried to predict what we’d see tonight with the rankings, and of course, we were wrong on several accounts. But one of them was a pleasant surprise of OSU checking in at No. 5. It was a little like trying to tell your spouse you had less money in the banking account only to be proven wrong by an ATM receipt.
But what does it really mean other than OSU being technically just one spot out of a playoff spot if it were to end today? We are here to try and dissect it all for you, but it’s pretty simple really.
Win out, and the Buckeyes are most assuredly in, and it’s easy math really. Should Ohio State win the remainder of its games, including the Big Ten Championship game, it would have beaten No. 3 Michigan State, knocking the Spartans out of a spot. Even if Georgia wins out but loses to Alabama in the SEC title game — in effect ensuring two SEC teams in the CFP — and Oregon takes care of business, that’s likely your four teams right there (Alabama, Georgia, Oregon, and Ohio State).
Of course, the flip side to that is if Ohio State drops one game, it’s likely out of the mix barring more chaos than a Jim Harbaugh press conference taking place.
However, I do believe there is one fly in the ointment we have to talk about, and it involves Oklahoma. The committee surprised everyone by plugging the Sooners in at No. 8 despite being an undefeated, 9-0 Power Five team. What happens if Oklahoma wins out? It will have better wins on its resume than what we’ve seen to date, and the committee is going to have a conundrum on its hands when trying to sort out the previously mentioned four teams.
Here’s the full #CFBPlayoff Top 25 rankings for games played through October 30.
Where does your team rank?
— College Football Playoff (@CFBPlayoff) November 2, 2021
In that scenario, I do believe there would be some danger of the Sooners — as an undefeated conference champion — knocking Ohio State out of the CFP if all that I’ve already mentioned holds true.
But hey, Ohio State sits in a really good spot and there are going to be further things develop that we just can’t see right now. There always is. The bottom line is that OSU is most likely in the CFP for the third-straight season if it can win every game in front of it.
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