Paul Finebaum still has 'serious reservations' about Ohio State ahead of Rose Bowl vs. Oregon

Although they rid themselves, to an extent, of what happened in The Game with what they did against Tennessee in the opening round of the College Football Playoff, Paul Finebaum still has his issues with Ohio State.

Finebaum reacted to Saturday’s playoff games, including the 42-17 win for the Buckeyes over the Volunteers, on SportsCenter on Sunday. For Ohio State moving forward, he just wants to know which version of their team plays in each game as their consistency is all that matters in deciding how far they advance in the field.

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“The biggest question I have for Ohio State is which one shows up?” Finebaum asked. “We know what happened last night. Will that same team make the move to Pasadena? If they do then they have a very good chance of beating Oregon because they only lost by one the last time at Oregon.”

“But I do have serious reservations, as great as that win was. Can this team put two or three wins together in a row? That has been one of the issues for Ohio State all season long,” said Finebaum.

The Buckeyes that beat the Volunteers on Saturday in Columbus is one of the best teams in college football. In nearly doubling them up in yardage, specifically in the passing game, they were up 21-0 from kickoff and by as much as 32 in the eventual win at 42-17. That Ohio State obviously looked much, much better than the one that we saw the last time that they took that field against the maize & blue.

However, for his concerns about Ohio State, Finebaum also has some about Oregon ahead of their rematch in The Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day. While the Buckeyes were three weeks between the end of the regular season and last night’s game, the Ducks will have a layoff that’s a few days longer than that between the Big Ten Championship and their first game in the CFP.

“The one question I have for Oregon is the layoff,” said Finebaum. “I spoke to Kirby Smart yesterday and he said, yeah, it’s great to sit around on Friday and Saturday to watch football but you worry about three weeks off. That’s exactly what Oregon will have, obviously, since the Big Ten Championship. You like to rest but you also worry about sitting around and not playing football, which Ohio State did.”

This portion of the playoff bracket was going to give us the two best games based on the three possible outcomes. Now, with No. 1 Oregon vs. No. 8 Ohio State set, it’s about how ready either one will be to play come kickoff in Cali on the first day of 2025.