Ohio State needs help to get to Indianapolis and play for the Big Ten championship.
The Buckeyes need to win their remaining two games against Michigan State and Michigan, and they also need Penn State to lose one of its final two. The Nittany Lions close the season against Rutgers and the Spartans.
Ohio State quarterback J.T. Barrett is well aware of the help his team needs to make it to the conference championship game. But even if the Buckeyes don’t get the help they need, Barrett believes Ohio State should make the College Football Playoff with two more wins.
“I see it like this,” Barrett said Monday. “If we win out all our games, Big Ten championship or not, you’re not going to put us in? You’re going to leave Ohio State out?”
“I know Big Ten championships and conference championships is a major thing, but then you’re talking about one of those two-loss teams and things like that. It’s something totally different.”
The way things stand right now, Ohio State needs help to play for a conference title. But the chance to play for something bigger, a national championship, remains alive if the Buckeyes win out.
At least according to Ohio State's starting quarterback.
“I think if we won our games, that’s the only thing we can control, the only thing we can handle,” Barrett said. “[The playoff] is left to somebody else, people on the committee and things like that. And at the end of the day, it’s one of those things of, ‘We can’t control that.’ We control winning games and if we do that, I feel like we’ve done our part.”
