Week 14 B1G Bowl Projections: Does Ohio State make CFP or not?

Only one question matters to Ohio State football fans as they wake up Sunday morning.

Did the Buckeyes do enough?

Did OSU’s 45-24 victory over Northwestern convince enough College Football Playoff voters that the Scarlet and Gray deserves a shot at the semifinals?

Let’s look at the pros and cons.

Pros

After its blowout loss to Purdue on Oct. 20, OSU won its final five games and scored an average of 44.2 points a game in that span. Three of those wins came against teams which were ranked at the time: No. 18 Michigan State, No. 4 Michigan and No. 21 Northwestern. The capper was Saturday in Indianapolis, when the Buckeyes rang up 607 total yards against a Wildcats defense which came in ranked 48th in the country in total defense and 29th in scoring defense.

Cons

Remember that Purdue game we mentioned in the last paragraph? Yeah. Start there. It isn’t just that OSU lost to a Boilermakers team which wound up 6-6. That’s the worst loss for any CFP contender by far. It’s the fact that OSU lost by 29 points. When critics bash Ohio State, these are the kinds of losses they point to. The CFP committee surely does as well. And as much (deserved) criticism as Oklahoma has taken for its defense, the Buckeyes were 67th in total D and 57th in scoring D before Saturday.

Verdict

Alabama did OSU a slight favor by beating Georgia, though the Dawgs also made a pretty good case for consideration. I am convinced, however, that the CFP will not rate a two-loss non-champion over a one-loss conference champion, no matter how good that two-loss team looks in nearly beating Bama.

So that leaves Oklahoma and Ohio State. That’s the decision the voters will make for the No. 4 spot. The problem for the Buckeyes is that the committee already made that decision. The Sooners were No. 5 and the Buckeyes No. 6 last week and nothing on Saturday gave us any reason to think that anything will change today. Oklahoma’s win over Texas was a bit tighter than OSU’s win over NU, but then Texas was ranked much higher. The needle didn’t really move for OU or OSU.

So, we think the Sooners wind up No. 4 and the owner of the last golden ticket to the semifinals.

The Rose Bowl is not a bad “consolation” prize for any disappointed Buckeyes. Call me old-fashioned, but winning the Big Ten and going to Pasadena is still a fine season by any measure. That’s what they will end up with, in my view. The Big Ten will miss the CFP for the second year in a row and the debate over expanding the Playoff to eight teams will reach full war volume.

So here are Saturday Tradition’s final B1G bowl projections:

Jim Tomlin

Longtime newspaper veteran Jim Tomlin is a writer and editor for saturdaytradition.com and saturdaydownsouth.com.