Explaining why Ohio State's strength of schedule is fair criticism despite 9-0 record

Ohio State remains the No. 1 overall seed in the rankings for the College Football Playoff, as it is still undefeated at 9-0. How the Buckeyes have gotten to 9-0, though, has come into question and criticism for some ahead of the CFP.

A topic on ‘Get Up’ on Thursday was, as far as the playoff, whether the panel would take the field or Ohio State. ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky answered first, picking the field because the Buckeyes, to him, are the “least tested No. 1 team in the history of college football” who have “played nobody.” Josh Pate was then asked to respond, agreeing in part with Orlovsky while noting that it’s not fully the fault of Ohio State.

“Relative to what it takes to push the water pressure against that dam, he’s actually right (that they haven’t played anybody),” Pate said. “And, that’s not a knock on them. Like, the Colts could descend to the Sun Belt and win every game 100-0. They would be the Indianapolis Colts, but it would be fair for half of college football to look and say, ‘Yeah, but who have they played?’. That’s kind of like what people are like with Ohio State.”

In terms of the teams in the latest edition of the CFP Top 25, Ohio State has the 17th-most-difficult strength of schedule, per ESPN’s FPI. That’s the second-lowest of any team currently projected to be in the field, and it’s only ahead of USF as the predicted representative out of the Group of Five.

But, again, the Buckeyes only control so much of that themselves, especially in conference play, as all they’re asked to do is win against who they play on Saturdays. It’s not necessarily on Ohio State that its wins over Texas, Washington, Illinois, and Penn State haven’t been or aren’t still perceived as they may have been once before, and the other league victories are what they are over Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Purdue. This argument isn’t going to change much either going into the postseason, as their remaining games are against UCLA, against Rutgers, and then obviously against Michigan in The Game.

However, while it raises a bit of a question, Pate thinks it makes Ohio State the biggest key to the entire field in the CFP. If they are what they have been this season, once they get into the playoff, it may very well just be the Buckeyes over everyone else. Or, if they aren’t and struggle, if not lose, to better competition in the bracket, it could make for a wide-open field for the College Football Playoff.

“Ohio State holds all the cards right now, because, if they are as good as they look, then it’s them and then it’s everybody else,” Pate said. “If there are flaws, kind of like Oregon last year? Oregon went wire-to-wire. Then they randomly get blown out in their first playoff game, and then you’re like, ‘Wow, undefeated, number one overall seed – I guess we just didn’t know what we didn’t know.’ If that remotely ends up being the case with Ohio State, we go from one North Star and everyone else, to literally 10 teams could win this whole thing.”