Ohio State Buckeyes: How does Maryland game cancellation impact playoff chances?

While 2020 seems to qualify as a “once-in-a-lifetime year,” whether that is a good thing seems to vary from day to day — if not more often.

While the initial heartbreak of the Big Ten “postponing” the fall season was followed by euphoria at the league’s announcement it would return, those feelings have given way to uncertainty with coronavirus cases rising throughout the country.

Never was that more apparent than Wednesday when Ohio State learned just before practice its game against Maryland on Saturday was canceled because of eight positive coronavirus tests among the Terrapins.

That again forced Day and his staff and players to adjust on the fly, looking ahead to a showdown with fellow unbeaten Indiana next week.

What else was there to do?

“We’ll have a good practice on Saturday and try to keep it as much routine as possible,” Day said. “When you keep changing routines on coaches and players and staff members, it wears you down. It just does. It’s a distraction, so we’re going to try to do everything we can to not do that and keep our kids safe.”

Here are five things to keep in mind as Ohio State faces a weekend with no game and the potential fallout nationally:

1. How does the cancelation of the Maryland game impact Ohio State’s playoff position?

That is impossible to answer without knowing exactly how the committee will view some variables — chief among them teams playing a different number of games.

While Ohio State will end the season having not played more than eight games, others in the hunt could have played as many as 50 percent more since the SEC, Big 12 and ACC (among other leagues) all began play in September.

Will that matter to the committee? Only time will tell.

“No one knows how many games any team will be playing,” CFP executive director Bill Hancock told ESPN this week. “Most of us expected games to be postponed or canceled. Everyone is moving forward as best they can.”

2. Could the season be extended?

Ohio State — and other teams — could get in more games if the playoff is moved back, an idea gaining traction in the media this week after multiple SEC games were postponed or canceled.

As of now, the CFP is still planning to hold its semifinals Jan. 1 at the Rose and Sugar Bowls with the championship game 10 days later in Miami.

The committee is set to reveal its first rankings next week and final rankings Dec. 20, one day after what is scheduled to be championship weekend around college football.

3. Who are the contenders?

Entering the weekend, the only undefeated teams left in the three leagues that started play in September were No. 1 Alabama (6-0) and No. 2 Notre Dame (7-0).

While the Pac-12 only started up a week ago, there are four undefeated teams in the Big Ten — No. 3 Ohio State, No. 10 Indiana, No. 14 Wisconsin and No. 23 Northwestern. (The Badgers have only played one game.)

The best of the rest of the contenders appears to be No. 7 Cincinnati, the top-ranked undefeated team from outside the Power 5 conferences, but one-loss teams Clemson, Texas A&M and Florida are between the Bearcats and crashing the CFP.

4. Does Ohio State control its destiny?

Maybe.

If the Buckeyes are able to play and win the rest of their games as scheduled — including a Big Ten Championship Game on Dec. 19 — then it is hard to see the committee leaving them out as it stands today.

That is especially true if there are no upsets among the rest of the top teams in the country, a scenario that would make sliding the three Power 5 unbeatens that have played closest to a full schedule (Alabama, Notre Dame and Ohio State) into the playoff.

The discussion for the last spot — including a 11-1 Big 12 champion Oklahoma State, 9-1 SEC West runner-up Texas A&M, a 7-0 Pac-12 champion or 11-0 Cincinnati — could be interesting, but it likely wouldn’t matter to Ohio State.

5. What if there is chaos (on the field) between now and the end of December?

Florida knocking off Alabama in the SEC Championship Game and Clemson avenging its regular season loss to Notre Dame in the ACC title game could muddy the waters.

That would double the number of seemingly deserving teams from just those two leagues and give the committee a lot more to think about even before considering what it means a Big Ten or Pac 12 champion played fewer games.

Ohio State being sidelined because of COVID cases and contact tracing itself or having more opponents come up unable to play also could complicate matters, but for now Day said he is trying not to worry about it.

“I tell our guys we can’t worry about what’s coming next,” Day said Thursday. "We have to just worry about today, and that’s what I’m trying to do, too.

“As you can imagine, it can get hard trying to think about all these different scenarios. ‘What if this?’ ‘What if that?’ ‘What if this?’ and one thing’s for sure — we don’t know what’s coming next. So who knows what’s coming, but what we can do is do a great job today — maximizing today and getting ready for Indiana — and then we go from there. But as these situations come up, we’ll just try to address them and try to advocate for the players and to do best for them so they get what they deserve.”