Ohio State fell four spots from No. 2 to No. 6 in the penultimate College Football Playoff Rankings released Tuesday night, putting them in solid position to potentially host a first-round game at Ohio Stadium despite its loss to unranked Michigan on Saturday.
Due to its shocking defeat to the Wolverines, Ohio State now goes from having the No. 5 seed to occupying the No. 8 seed in the College Football Playoff bracket, where it is projected to host No. 9 seed (No. 7 overall) Tennessee on either Dec. 20 or Dec. 21. In this current bracket, the Buckeyes would then move on to face No. 1 Oregon in the quarterfinal round if they defeated the Volunteers, a game that would be a rematch of the two teams’ classic matchup on Oct. 12.
The Ducks, as the highest-ranked conference champion, currently own the No. 1 seed in the entire bracket, followed by No. 2 seed (No. 2) Texas of the SEC, No. 3 seed (No. 8) SMU of the Big 12 and No. 4 seed (No. 10) Boise State of the Mountain West. The No. 5 seed in the tournament is now occupied by Penn State, which jumped one spot to No. 3 in the rankings and is now set to host No. 12 seed (No. 15) Arizona State at Beaver Stadium.
The rest of the bracket includes No. 6 seed (No. 4) Notre Dame hosting No. 11 seed (No. 11) Alabama at Notre Dame Stadium, No. 7 seed (No. 5) Georgia hosting No. 10 (No. 9) Indiana at Sanford Stadium and the matchup between the Buckeyes and Volunteers in Columbus.
These seedings and rankings could drastically change following a potentially hectic championship weekend, which could see teams such as No. 16 Iowa State, No. 17 Clemson and No. 20 UNLV enter the bracket as a top-four seed if they are to win their respective conference championship games against SMU, Arizona State and Boise State.
A chaotic Friday and Saturday could hurt teams just on the outside-looking-in on the top-12, such as No. 12 Miami — who dropped out of the rankings after its upset loss of now-No. 22 Syracuse — No. 13 Ole Miss and No. 14 South Carolina.
The final College Football Playoff rankings will be revealed Sunday afternoon live on ESPN following the conclusion of conference championship weekend.
