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Ryan Day isn’t giving up the dream.
Ohio State’s head coach still believes his team did enough to qualify for the College Football Playoff despite Saturday’s 45-23 loss at home against hated rivals Michigan.
“As we get to those decisions, you got to look at the body of work and what we’ve done,” he told reporters. “We got a lot of good pieces on this team and came up short today, but if we were able to get a shot in the top four, we would be a dangerous team.”
He also felt like the final score on Saturday wasn’t indicative of how close the game was.
“Obviously it got out of control down the stretch, but it wasn’t like we were outmatched in terms of just the overall play,” he noted.
That’s debatable, though Ohio State did take a 20-17 lead into halftime and only trailed 24-20 after three quarters before the Wolverines outscored the Buckeyes 21-3 in the final frame.
The issue for the Buckeyes is that they won’t have the Big Ten Championship Game to bolster their resume. The Associated Press poll bumped them down to No. 5 on Sunday, though the only rankings that truly matter come from the College Football Playoff committee.
Georgia (12-0), Michigan (12-0) and TCU (12-0) will all be locks if they win their respective conference title games. The final spot will likely come down to USC or Ohio State, and if the Trojans win the Pac-12 title game, they’ll almost assuredly get the nod.
What will become more interesting is if any of the aforementioned teams stumble. Georgia and Michigan are probably safe at this point, but a TCU or USC loss could thrust the Buckeyes back into the conversation.
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