A week ago, the Ohio State Buckeyes were already facing an uphill climb to secure a spot in the College Football Playoff. Following Saturday’s disastrous 41-28 loss to Oregon, that hill has turned into an Everest-like climb; it’s still possible to reach the summit, but it will take a superhuman effort and a lot of luck not to die along the way.
On Tuesday evening, the committee unveiled its second rankings of the 2026 season, dropping Ohio State eight spots from No. 12 to No. 20. At 6-3 overall and
4-2 in Big Ten play, the Buckeyes find themselves well outside the projected 12-team field, with their chances of making the postseason looking increasingly remote.
The precipitous fall comes after Ohio State suffered consecutive regular-season losses for the first time since 2011, following its 30-18 defeat at USC with Saturday’s 13-point loss to Oregon at Ohio Stadium. The Buckeyes entered the season as the nation’s No. 1 team in the preseason AP Poll, but have now lost three games this season and five of their last 11 dating back to last season.
The one saving grace for the Buckeyes is that Ohio State’s three losses have come against teams currently ranked in the committee’s top 20, with Texas sitting at No. 6, USC at No. 18, and Oregon at No. 16. However, while those losses are certainly more defensible than defeats at the hands of hypothetical unranked opponents, the totality of the Buckeyes’ circumstances (losses, injuries, listless performance) has effectively doomed their chances.
The one significant argument Ohio State still has in its favor is its collection of road victories over highly regarded Big Ten opponents. The Buckeyes defeated Indiana 19-15 in Bloomington on Oct. 17 and Iowa 31-14 in Iowa City two weeks earlier, with both teams remaining comfortably ahead of OSU in the latest rankings.
Unfortunately, those victories have been overshadowed by Ohio State’s inability to maintain its early-season momentum, particularly following the injury to starting quarterback Julian Sayin. The Buckeyes have struggled to generate consistent offensive production behind true freshman Luke Fahey, and the loss to Oregon exposed additional problems on both sides of the ball.
While there is obviously no way to know for certain, if everything else had played out exactly the same, but Julian Sayin had never gotten injured, I believe that the committee would give the Buckeyes much more benefit of the doubt, which would be understandable. Ohio State has looked pretty bad since Sayin went down, and the player who has been tasked with replacing him has done nothing to instill confidence in anyone who has watched him play.
The betting markets paint a similarly bleak picture for the Buckeyes. According to FanDuel Sportsbook, Ohio State is now listed at +8000 to win the national championship, giving the Buckeyes an implied probability of just 1.23% to claim the title. That’s a dramatic fall from the +950 odds they carried just a few weeks ago, before consecutive losses to USC and Oregon sent their season into a tailspin. Georgia is the current championship favorite at +250, followed by Notre Dame (+400) and Alabama (+550). FanDuel gives the Buckeyes odds of +500 to make the CFP, or a 16.67% probability.
At the top of the second CFP rankings, Georgia (8-1) moved into the No. 1 position following its dominant 42-7 victory over Ole Miss, while undefeated Utah (9-0) climbed to No. 2 after defeating BYU. Alabama (7-2) jumped two spots to No. 3, and unbeaten UCLA (9-0) rounded out the top four after improving its record with a win over Minnesota.
Notre Dame (8-1) made one of the biggest moves of the week, climbing six spots to No. 5 following its 31-24 victory over previously top-ranked Miami. Texas (7-2), Miami (8-1), Tennessee (7-2), Indiana (8-1), and BYU (7-2) completed the top 10, with Kentucky (7-2) and Texas Tech (8-1) occupying the final two positions in the top 12.
The Big Ten placed six teams in the latest top 25, led by UCLA and Indiana. Iowa climbed four spots to No. 15, while Oregon made a seven-spot jump to No. 16 following its win at The Horseshoe. USC moved up to No. 18 despite being idle last weekend, leaving the Buckeyes as the conference’s sixth and final ranked team.
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of Ohio State’s current position is that it has no remaining games against teams currently ranked in the CFP top 25, meaning that even winning out might not provide the résumé boost necessary to climb back into playoff contention, even if there is considerable chaos around the rest of college football.
The Buckeyes will host Northwestern on Saturday, Nov. 14, before traveling to Nebraska on Nov. 21 and concluding the regular season against Michigan at Ohio Stadium on Nov. 28. All three opponents are currently unranked, leaving Ohio State with limited opportunities to impress the committee over the final three weeks.
Even if the Buckeyes win their remaining games to finish 9-3, they would likely need considerable help from teams ahead of them to have any realistic chance of earning one of the seven at-large bids. Their victories over Indiana and Iowa could still carry some weight, but their losses to USC and Oregon create additional obstacles, particularly given the head-to-head results.
There is still a mathematical possibility for the Buckeyes to earn a spot in the final Big Ten Championship Game, but in addition to them winning out, that would require considerable stumbles from UCLA and/or Indiana, the two teams currently at the top of the conference standings. Ohio State currently has the fifth-best odds of winning the Big Ten at +1000, according to FanDuel.
For Ohio State, the immediate priority is simply finding a way to win again after a miserable two-week stretch. While the Buckeyes have not been mathematically eliminated from postseason contention, Tuesday’s rankings make one thing abundantly clear: Their margin for error has essentially disappeared, and even a perfect finish might not be enough to salvage their playoff hopes.
