Well, suppose that doesn't happen. Suppose that, in order to make the playoffs, 2-loss Ohio State has to finish ahead of at least one 1-loss Power 5 team. Oh, the screaming you'll hear (especially from Penn State fans, although it'll be hard to notice because they never shut up). "Ohio State made the playoffs last year instead of Penn State, and Penn State had a conference championship AND a head-to-head win! The Committee has spoken, and a 2-loss team can't take a 1-loss team's spot!"
Now, I've been a fan of the Committee's work over these last 3 years; each year they've put in the same 4 teams that I would've (although in a different order each year). Which means that, yes, I agreed with the Committee that Ohio State deserved a playoff spot ahead of Penn State, even with no conference championship. Does this mean that this season, for the sake of consistency, the Committee would need to rank an 11-2 B1G champion Ohio State below a potential 1-loss conference also-ran?
No. Not necessarily. To understand why not, we need to revisit what an anomaly the 2016 Ohio State team was.
In 2015, Ohio State had maybe its most talented team ever (see also 2003, 2005). They opened with a smashing road win over Virginia Tech and closed out their regular season with a crushing road win over top-15 Michigan to finish 11-1. Their only loss along the way was on a last-second field goal to the B1G champion, #3-ranked Michigan State.
And Ohio State finished ranked #7, notably behind Pac-12 champion 11-2 Stanford.
Fast forward a year. 2016 Ohio State again finished the regular season 11-1 after losing to the B1G champions. And yet these Buckeyes finished ranked #3, ahead of B1G champion 11-2 Penn State. Why?
Because they had the most absurd resume of any 1-loss team in College Football Playoff history.
The 2016 Buckeyes had wins over #6 Michigan, #7 Oklahoma, and #8 Wisconsin, the latter 2 on the road. And their one loss was on a blocked field goal on the road at #5 Penn State. Only one other 1-loss playoff contender has ever had even TWO wins over top ten teams: 2015 Michigan State beat #5 Iowa and #7 Ohio State, and their loss was to 6-6 Nebraska.
2016 Clemson's resume sure didn't stack up to OSU's, with their best win being over #11 Florida State and their loss to #23 Pitt, but Clemson finished #2 while OSU finished #3, showing that the Committee wasn't giving Ohio State a free pass for not winning their conference title championship. The message was clear: the Committee really, really wants to put conference champions into the playoff, but if you have a better record than the conference champion, AND you're an absolute world-beater who got hosed out of a conference title on tiebreakers, they'll make an exception.
A rare exception, I'd wager. It's almost a shame that this rogue conference non-champion barged into the playoffs so early in the format's existence. 2016 Ohio State is going to set a lot of fan bases up for disappointment. My guess is that 10 years down the line, we'll have only seen another 1 or 2 non-champions in the playoff, and then only under striking circumstances (if we don't have a watered down 8-team abomination by then).
Which leads us to this year. Are there any potential 1-loss conference non-champions who could stand between an 11-2 B1G champion Ohio State and the playoff? First, let's list all the Power 5 teams that could finish with one loss and not win their conference:
- Alabama (could lose to Auburn and go 11-1, or lose to Georgia and go 12-1)
- Miami (could lose to Clemson and go 11-1)
- Wisconsin (could lose to Ohio State and go 12-1)
How do these teams' resumes stack up?
- Alabama: wins over...Mississippi State and LSU? Maybe a win over Auburn if they then get knocked off in the title game? Their loss would be pretty good, either Auburn or Georgia.
- Miami: a great win over Notre Dame...and then? Maybe VT will crack the rankings again, but the overall resume is still terribly thin. A loss to Clemson would be eminently forgivable.
- Wisconsin: wins over... ... ...Northwestern? Michigan, who won't be ranked if they lose to Ohio State? Iowa (hey, great win over OSU)? Not a lot of meat on these bones. And losing to Ohio State would not help Wisconsin's case.
Not a particularly strong candidate among them. These teams are looking an awful lot more like 2015 Ohio State than 2016 Ohio State, which means that I don't see any of them making the playoff if they don't walk away with their conference championships. Heck, even Notre Dame and USC would be knocking on the semifinals' door before these teams.
And that's the rub. Ironically, this year, the bigger threat seems to come from the potential 2-loss conference non-champions. A 2-loss non-champion getting in over a 2-loss champion would be real uncharted territory, but then again, so would any 2-loss team getting in at all. Let's go to the resumes:
- Clemson (could lose to Miami and go 11-2)
- Well, the Auburn win could look really good, especially if the Tigers win the SEC, but otherwise these Tigers' next best win is NC State? Va Tech? They'd have lots of wins over 6-6 or so bowl teams, but not many flashy splashy victories. And the Syracuse loss is the worst of any playoff contender.
- Oklahoma (could lose to TCU (or whomever) and go 11-2)
- Here's your flashy splashy wins: TCU, Oklahoma State, Ohio State. Oklahoma should be ranked ahead of Clemson now (and my guess is that this corrects itself before championship week) and would likely stay ahead of Ohio State even with a loss, thanks to the head-to-head road win and comparable resume otherwise.
- Notre Dame (cannot win a conference championship without a conference)
- Resume looks great now with losses to two top teams and wins over USC, Michigan State, and NC State. But I'm not sure if it beats out wins over Wisconsin, Penn State, and Michigan State, even if the Irish does pick up Stanford along the way.
- Penn State, Washington (could win out and not play for a conference title)
- Hahahaha no.
This post is not intended to make the case that any of the above teams should or should not make the playoff ahead of Ohio State. Rather, the point is that just because 2016 Ohio State jumped Penn State to take a playoff slot despite no conference title, it doesn't follow that the 2017 Ohio State Buckeyes need to quietly step aside to let a similarly situated Alabama or Miami past them. It's not always (usually, but not always) as simple as one loss versus two.
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