I'm a Data Scientist by trade so I mostly look and track certain analytics when objectively judging the strength of how good certain college football teams. Ohio State is currently the #1 team in the country in every single analytical model that I look at.
Ohio State is currently 1st in the country in FEI, SP+, F+, FPI, Sagarin, Kelley Ford, and Phil Steele's Vegas Power Ratings. The last and only Ohio State team that has ever been 1st at any point in all of these was the 2019 OSU team that is commonly considered one of the best OSU teams of all time.
Is this 2024 team as good as the 2019 team? In my opinion, no. However, they don't have to be because these models are in comparison to the rest of the field. Overall, the 2024 college football field is much weaker than 2019. I've been on record stating a number of times that 2019 could be argued to have been the strongest field that has existed in the modern era. The top teams in 2019 were REALLY REALLY good. there were straight up 4-5 elite teams that season. Fortunately for us, there don't appear to be any this year. So the 2024 OSU team compared to the 2024 field is comparable to the 2019 OSU team vs the 2019 field.
My favorite model to look at is FEI, where Ohio State is currently #1 is offensive efficiency and #5 in defensive efficiency. The only other OSU team to ever be Top 5 at both at any point was the 2019 OSU team that finished 2nd and 3rd respectively in those metrics. So this OSU team is not only very good, they are also very balanced.
I bring this up to say that this OSU team is REALLY good. Yes, we lost a tough game to another elite team on the road by one point. That's football. We played our C game and Oregon played their A- game and we still barely lost. Vegas has OSU with the 2nd best odds to win the National Championship behind only Georgia who has already played the hardest games on their schedule. Vegas would favor OSU over anyone in the country on a neutral site right now. Yes, that includes Texas, Georgia, and Oregon.
Also Indiana is for real. The analytic models love them and the unweighted FEI would currently have them as the #1 offense in the country. They are legit and will be a very tough game in a couple of weeks.
If any of you want to take a look at these models, I've shared the links below:
FEI - https://www.bcftoys.com/2024-fei
F+ - https://www.bcftoys.com/2024-fplus/
Sagarin - http://sagarin.com/sports/cfsend.htm
SP+ (Paywall) - https://www.espn.com/college-football/insider/story/_/id/41901478/college-football-2024-week-8-sp+-rankings-takeaways
Kelley Ford - https://kfordratings.com/power
FPI - https://www.espn.com/college-football/fpi
Vegas Power Ratings - https://philsteele.com/vegas-power-ratings-for-week-8-3/
