Paul Finebaum on Oregon, Ohio State College Football Playoff rankings
The No. 5 Ohio State Buckeyes and No. 7 Oregon Ducks won’t be the the highest-ranked one-loss team in the committee’s first College Football Playoff rankings, which release next week, but they’ll hope to make their case heard alongside the Alabama Crimson Tide.
Oregon saw its AP ranking climb as high as No. 3 after defeating Ohio State on the road in Week 2, but after an upset loss to unranked Stanford, the Ducks’ College Football Playoff hopes are hanging by a thread. Similarly, Ohio State had a clear path to the postseason but stirred uncertainty by losing to Oregon. But one thing remains clear to ESPN college football analyst Paul Finebaum — regardless of whether Oregon or Ohio State make it to the College Football Playoff, the Buckeyes should have a higher ranking at the onset.
“[The committee will] play games with us early on, but in the end, if this path continues, I don’t know how any reasonable college football people can sit in a room and say that Oregon is better than Ohio State,” Finebaum said Monday on McElroy and Cubelic in The Morning. “And I hear it every week. I was will one of our esteemed [ESPN] colleagues the other morning screaming about: ‘You can’t put Ohio State over Oregon.’ Well I would. Because I’m trying to base what’s happening now, not what happened the second weekend in September. Fair or not, that’s just how I see it.”
Ohio State boasts a perfect record in Big Ten play, having defeated Minnesota, Rutgers, Maryland and Indiana. While the Buckeyes’ toughest conference tasks have yet to arrive — they face No. 20 Penn State, No. 8 Michigan State and No. 6 Michigan in three of their final five games — they have made the most of their Big Ten opportunities to date. Oregon, on the other hand, has lost one Pac-12 game to Stanford, and it has five more conference matchups; by season’s end, Oregon will have not faced a ranked opponent outside of Ohio State, as the Pac-12 struggles mightily.
Ohio State enters its home contest against Penn State after three consecutive dominant displays, beating Rutgers 52-13, Maryland 66-17 and Indiana 54-7. Quarterback C.J. Stroud looked excellent against Indiana, completing 21 of 28 passing attempts for 266 passing yards and four touchdowns, but its rushing defense looked even better. The Buckeyes managed to hold Indiana to a horrid 48 rushing yards on 37 carries, and Ohio State’s defense continues to set itself apart in 2021.
If Oregon hopes to even keep its Playoff hopes alive, it must pull away in conference games, and it must find a way to improve the defensive play. Mario Cristobal’s team barely beat UCLA on Saturday, winning just 34-31 — a narrow victory that pales in comparison to Ohio State’s Big Ten dominance.