Should Ohio State make the College Football Playoff?
That’s the question that the playoff committee will debate until the field is announced on Sunday around 12:30 p.m., but if you ask the Buckeyes themselves, there is no debate.
"Come on now," Ohio State defensive end Chase Young said after the Buckeyes' 27-21 win at Lucas Oil Stadium, when asked whether he believes the Buckeyes belong in the College Football Playoff. "You already know. We bust our butts, day in and day out, and I think we do belong in."
If Ohio State needed a dominant win in Saturday’s Big Ten Championship Game, like it got over Wisconsin in the 2014 Big Ten Championship Game, to convince the College Football Playoff committee that it belongs in this year’s field of four, that’s not what it got. The Buckeyes struggled to put away the Badgers, ultimately winning by only six points after coming up with stops on their final two defensive series.
At the same time, though, Ohio State’s win over Wisconsin came over a team that was ranked fourth in last week’s College Football Playoff rankings, giving the Buckeyes two wins over teams who were ranked in the top 10 of last week’s CFP standings – two more than Alabama, the other team with a realistic shot of joining Clemson, Oklahoma and Georgia as the fourth and final team in the playoff.
As Ohio State coach Urban Meyer wanted to make sure the world knew in his interview during the Buckeyes’ postgame celebration, the Buckeyes’ other top-10 win against Penn State also came against a team that was ranked in the top four – No. 2 in the AP Top 25, to be exact – at the time of the Buckeyes’ win.
"We have two wins over two top-four teams, and another one, I believe they were ranked 12th to 13th (Michigan State)," Meyer said. "We’re the conference champions. I love these guys. I’ve never been more proud of a group of players, and we deserve a shot."
Ohio State linebacker Chris Worley is among the Buckeyes who believe their resume speaks for itself.
"I think this team is definitely deserving of it," Worley said. "At the end of the day, man, look at our record. Look what we’ve done. The caliber of team we have."
“We deserve a shot.”– Urban Meyer
The problem with simply looking at the Buckeyes’ record, however, is that they have two losses. A two-loss team has never made the College Football Playoff, and while one of their losses was excusable – a Week 2 loss to Oklahoma – their other loss, a 31-point loss to unranked Iowa, is certainly enough to make an argument against them.
The question is, are Ohio State’s good wins and a conference championship enough for the Buckeyes to trump Alabama, who only has one loss but didn’t even play in a conference title game on Saturday?
It might or might not be. The Buckeyes have no control over what happens now. But they did what they needed to keep themselves in the debate by winning on Saturday.
They probably could have strengthened their chances by pulling away from the Badgers and blowing them out like they did three years ago, but while the Buckeyes missed some opportunities that could have enabled to win the game by a bigger margin, they believe the fact that they handed the Badgers their first loss of the season despite not playing a perfect game was an indicator of how good the Buckeyes really are.
"We beat Penn State when they were No. 2, we just beat the No. 4 team," said Ohio State running back J.K. Dobbins. "And we turned the ball over three times. We kind of gave them their points."
Worley believes the Buckeyes’ two losses are not indicative of their capability as a team, and as a result, he believes the Buckeyes can prove their doubters wrong once again – much like they did in 2014 – if the committee gives them the opportunity to play for another national title.
"I think that those two losses make us even scarier," Worley said. "We done lost two games and all due respect to the teams we played, we made so many mistakes, this is just, it’s scary. You take away those mistakes. It’s just scary, man.
"If you put us in there, man, we’re going to make magic happen. Just like we did in 2014, when everybody was counting us out. I feel like if we get in there, man, we’re going to make some magic happen."
