Buckeyes punch ticket to Cotton Bowl quarterfinal in College Football Playoff
COLUMBUS — Ohio State didn’t end its season the way it wanted to on Saturday night, dropping the Big Ten Championship in an ugly 13-10 loss to undefeated Indiana.
But the Buckeyes still sit at 12-1 with impressive wins on their resume, so they didn’t fall far at all from their previous perch as the top team in college football.
They’re in the 12-team College Football Playoff field for the second straight year, and they’ll begin their national title defense as the No. 2 seed.
Ohio State will play the winner of No. 7 seed Texas A&M and No. 10 seed Miami in the Cotton Bowl on New Year’s Eve. Those two teams will meet on Dec. 20 in College Station to decide who gets to play the Buckeyes.
Last year, Ohio State entered the CFP coming off a loss to a bad Michigan team and had to regroup in order to win the national title. The Buckeyes barreled through 9-seed Tennessee at home, delivered a Rose Bowl romp over top-seeded Oregon and a gritty win over the No. 5 seed Texas before winning the national title game over No. 7 seed Notre Dame.
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Now the program must do it again, head into the CFP fresh off a loss. It’s something they’ve done before and can do again — if they can regroup.
“Just the knowledge that we’ve done it before and go regroup and do it again,” Ohio State captain and safety Caleb Downs said. “I mean, there’s nothing else to say. They executed at a high level today. They won a lot of the 50-50 balls, and that’s what they did. And they won the game, so we have to regroup and go from there.”
The path is now officially set for Ohio State. The full bracket is out. The Buckeyes’ quest for back-to-back national championships will begin against either Texas A&M or Miami in the Cotton Bowl.
The full bracket can be found below:
No. 9 Alabama at No. 8 Oklahoma (winner plays No. 1 Indiana in the Rose Bowl)
No. 10 Miami at No. 7 Texas A&M (winner plays No. 2 Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl Bowl)
No. 11 Tulane No. 4 at No. 6 Ole Miss (winner plays No. 3 Georgia in the Sugar Bowl Bowl)
No. 12 James Madison at No. 5 Oregon (winner plays No. 4 Texas Tech in the Orange Bowl)