The first College Football Playoff rankings were released on Tuesday night and the Ohio State Buckeyes were on the outside-looking-in.
While ranked No. 12 in the rankings, there was no Group of 5 team ahead meaning the Buckeyes would get jumped by the highest-ranked G5 program. So, there is exactly no room for error from here on out for Ohio State.
Coming off of a loss to No. 20 USC, Ohio State now has two losses and still games against No. 23 Oregon this week, Northwestern, Nebraska and Michigan. A difficult schedule before the injury to quarterback Julian Sayin, it's even more of an uphill battle now with freshman Luke Fahey.
The Buckeyes aren't the first team to lose their starting quarterback midseason during the College Football Playoff era.
Despite not a perfect apples-to-apples comparison, the precedent isn't in Ohio State's favor. Whether it be Florida State with Jordan Travis in 2023 as the first unbeaten Power 5 conference winner to miss the playoff -- albeit the four-team bracket. Or other teams ranked higher or lower based on which quarterback was under center.
On Tuesday, the CFP Committee Chairman Hunter Yurachek addressed that topic.
"We don't look at them as a different team per se," Yurachek said. "We evaluated the game that they had, and they've only got one datapoint without Sayin at quarterback, and that was this past weekend at Southern Cal. I think we evaluated their defense probably a little bit stronger than we evaluated their offense. Their offense, I think, had 450 plus yards. They stalled some when they got deep into USC territory and had to kick four field goals, didn't get into the end zone until the fourth quarter.
"But their defense gave up some explosive plays. The fact that their offense wasn't more efficient against a USC defense, it had not been very good to this point in the season was a little bit surprising to us as a committee, but we can't put that all on a freshman quarterback."
So based on the comments, this could be a different scenario, one where the Buckeyes could continue to rise with wins against notable opponents remaining on the schedule. This weekend will go a long way in helping that resume.
"Again, you're considering the entire body of work by Ohio State, not just one game," Yurachek added. "We only had one game to evaluate them currently without Julian in the lineup."
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This article originally appeared on Buckeyes Wire: CFP Chair discusses how committee evaluated OSU without Julian Sayin
