Ohio State’s national championship hopes are officially dead.
The Buckeyes will not be among the participants in this year’s College Football Playoff as Michigan, Washington, Texas and Alabama were selected Sunday as the four teams who will compete for this year’s national title.
The No. 1 seed Michigan will play the No. 4 seed Alabama in the Rose Bowl while the No. 2 seed Washington will play the No. 3 seed Texas in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1.
Ohio State now waits to see which of this year’s non-playoff New Year’s Six Bowls it will play in. It will not play in the Orange Bowl, as sixth-ranked Georgia will face fifth-ranked Florida State – the first-ever undefeated Power 5 champion to be left out of the CFP – in that matchup between the highest-ranked SEC or Big Ten team not in the CFP and the ACC champion.
The Buckeyes could play in any of the Cotton Bowl, Fiesta Bowl or Peach Bowl. The Buckeyes’ bowl destination and the full top 25 of the final CFP rankings will be revealed at 2:30 p.m. Sunday.
In the 10 years of the four-team playoff, which will be held for the final time this year before the CFP expands to 12 teams next season, Ohio State finishes 5-5 in making the playoff vs. missing the playoff. Even with this year’s miss, Ohio State finishes the four-team playoff era with the third-most CFP appearances of any team behind only Alabama (eight) and Clemson (six).
That said, this will be the third year in a row that Ohio State falls short of achieving all of its major goals as the Buckeyes failed to beat Michigan, did not qualify for the Big Ten Championship Game and will not have a chance to win a national championship.
