College Football Playoff forecast: Why Ohio State loss was great news for rest of the field

Going into the College Football Playoff things seem as wide open as ever, in part because of conference championship weekend. Ohio State and Alabama are both in the field after suffering losses in their respective conference championship games.

Those results stood out to college football analyst Josh Pate. He had one simple observation coming out of Saturday.

“Ohio State bled on conference championship Saturday,” Pate said slowly on Josh Pate’s College Football Show. “Ohio State bled.”

What does that mean? Everything, according to Pate.

“Now, I’m not being a Buckeye hater when I say that,” he said. “I’m reverting back to a point I made a few weeks ago. Someone asked on the show, ‘How many teams can win the national title?’ I said, ‘That’s all up to Ohio State.’ Because up until that point Ohio State had looked utterly dominant. And I said, ‘If they really are as good as they look, very few teams can win a national title. But if we change nothing about this sport other than Ohio State’s a little more vulnerable than they have looked, it’s game on.’

“Well they looked more than vulnerable. They lost. They gave up 13 points in the conference title game and still lost. So they bled.”

The Buckeyes were able to lose and still retain the No. 2 seed in the playoff. That will carry with it a first-round bye, so Ohio State has time to sort out what went wrong in the Big Ten Championship Game.

It’s nothing that will keep Ohio State up at night. But it will also wake up other contenders, Pate said.

“Now it’s game on. Ohio State can still win it, they’re still the favorite,” Pate said. “Indiana can win it. I know. I’ve already seen them beat Ohio State. But Georgia? Yes. Oregon? Yes. I’m going to get back to Texas Tech. Texas Tech, outside shot? Yes. But now we start to think about the Texas A&Ms of the world.”

Before diving into the rest of the potential contenders, Pate broke down the other team that lost its conference championship game. Pate’s not as bullish on ‘Bama.

“‘Bama I still have a real hard time seeing,” he said. “Ironically I picked them to win the national title and they’re the team in that group I feel least confident in. But even with Alabama, if you walk it through, if they just come out against Oklahoma and Jam Miller‘s back and Josh Cuevas is back, they’re just a little bit healthier, the pass game clicks a little bit more, offensive line a little bit more crisp. I mean Alabama, like people have forgotten about that run they went on because they faltered down the stretch. Well maybe they get right or maybe they don’t. The point is if they do Alabama at their best could be in that mix.”

The college football analyst added two other teams to the mix. Both could challenge Ohio State, he said.

“Miami. I skipped over Ole Miss, they qualify too,” Pate said. “Miami got in the playoff, they could be in that mix. Miami, they could lose in the first round, but they could also win the whole thing just because Ohio State bled a little bit. It changed my entire world view on the playoff.”