Ohio State's streak as the No. 2 team in the College Football Playoff rankings has ended.
Following Ohio State's 13-10 loss to Michigan in its regular-season finale, the CFP committee dropped the Buckeyes to No. 6 in its latest top 25.
Ohio State appeared behind Oregon, Texas, Penn State, Notre Dame and Georgia in the rankings. The other top 12 teams are Tennessee, SMU, Indiana, Boise State, Alabama and Miami (Florida).
THE UPDATED CFP BRACKET PROJECTION pic.twitter.com/5dB1gqvoD0
— ESPN (@espn) December 4, 2024
Ohio State went 10-2 in the 2024 college football regular season. Two of the Buckeyes' wins have come over teams currently ranked in the 12-team field, including then-No. 3 Penn State on Nov. 2 and then-No. 5 Indiana on Nov. 23. The Buckeyes' two losses were to then-No. 3 Oregon in Eugene on Oct. 12 and Michigan in Columbus on Saturday.
This weekend, Oregon will face Penn State in the Big Ten Championship Game, Texas will face Georgia in the SEC Championship Game, SMU will face Clemson in the ACC Championship Game and Arizona State will face Iowa State in the Big 12 Championship Game.
With those results still to be determined, at least four teams will see their rankings change before the committee sets the 12-team field on Sunday. If those results end with chalk — Oregon over Penn State, Texas over Georgia, SMU over Clemson and Arizona State over Iowa State — the Buckeyes could land anywhere between No. 6 and No. 8, depending on how the committee views the Nittany Lions' loss to the Ducks and the Bulldogs' loss to the Longhorns. No matter how the conference championship games shake out, Ohio State is all but guaranteed to host a playoff game on either Dec. 20 or Dec. 21, as CFP selection committee chair Warde Manuel said that rankings between teams who are not playing on conference championship weekend will not change in Sunday’s final rankings, which means the Buckeyes should remain ahead of any team who would be a threat to jump them in the at-large standings.
“Any team that is not playing right now, we don't have a data point to rearrange where we have those teams ranked. So that is set in terms of how we see them going into the final week of championship week,” Manuel said Tuesday on ESPN. “There's nothing that's going to change for us to evaluate them any differently than we have now. Those teams who are not playing cannot be adjusted in terms of where they are compared to other teams that are not playing. But the championship teams, we will evaluate that data point to determine if there needs to be any movement based on how the performance of the game goes.”
To see how Ohio State's resume compares to other contenders for a first-round College Football Playoff home game, click here.
