Ohio State dropped to fifth in the CFP committee’s rankings Tuesday night after a stunningly decisive loss to Michigan last Saturday.
Coach Ryan Day’s team entered championship weekend with a couple of potential paths to the playoff, though, and the first one opened Friday night in Las Vegas as the Utes survived an early scoring blitz and beat the Trojans going away.
While more than one national college football writer howled on social media about the unfairness of Ohio State potentially being able to move up without playing this weekend, Day did not sound a bit apologetic about it Saturday morning.
“It has been an emotional rollercoaster, but when you go through a few days where you think maybe your whole season is gone and then you start to build hope and you start to see an opportunity where everything is right out in front of you, it’s almost like a second lease on life,” Day said during an appearance on ESPN’s College GameDay show. “So you come out of that thing and we’re very excited. There’s been a whole swing in the whole program here in the last 24 hours.”
Ryan Day talks about how things have changed for Ohio State after USC's loss:
— College GameDay (@CollegeGameDay) December 3, 2022
"You get an opportunity to go play in this thing, you're two games away from a national championship after feeling like, a few days ago, your season was over." pic.twitter.com/z1XQCKH8zO
The CFP committee still must render its final judgement after the rest of the conference championship games are held Saturday, but the Buckeyes appear to be in a good position with USC suffering its second loss.
CFP selection committee chair Boo Horrigan said Tuesday night after the rankings were released the committee put the Trojans ahead of the Buckeyes because of USC having three wins over ranked teams to Ohio State’s two.
What the group does next is never guaranteed, but no two-loss team made the playoff in the first eight years, and Ohio State has advantages in overall strength of schedule and many statistical categories.
A team missing its conference championship game but making the playoff has precedent.
Ohio State did so in 2016, but the Buckeyes were already in the top four entering the weekend.
In 2017, Alabama and Georgia both entered the top four in the final rankings after the Bulldogs knocked out previously No. 2 Auburn and Ohio State beat No. 4 Wisconsin. The Crimson Tide got the nod over the Buckeyes for the fourth spot and ultimately beat Clemson and Georgia to win it all.
“There’s been teams that have been able to rally, so we spent our time focusing on the things we didn’t do well (against Michigan), but by the end of the week we were looking forward, and now we’re really looking forward.”
“Our guys were looking for an opportunity to finish this thing the right way this season, and I think that opportunity is now in front of us.”
The final CFP rankings will be released at 12:15 p.m. Sunday.
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