Ohio State opened at No. 6 in the initial College Football Playoff rankings of 2017, behind No. 5 Oklahoma.
The entire Top 25 is as follows.
Selection Committee Members
Kirby Hocutt, Chair
Director of Athletics, Texas Tech University
Experience as athletics director at three FBS institutions in three separate conferences.
College football student-athlete, four-year letterman and all-conference selection.
Frank Beamer
Former Head Coach, Virginia Tech
Forty-nine years of college football experience as a coach and student-athlete.
Winningest active coach in FBS history at the time of his retirement.
Jeff Bower
Former Head Coach, University of Southern Mississippi
Spent 29 years at the University of Southern Mississippi as a coach and student-athlete.
Named “Coach of the Decade” by Conference USA in 2004.
Herb Deromedi
Former Head Coach, Central Michigan University
Member of the College Football Hall of Fame.
Spent a 38 years at CMU and retired as the winningest coach in Mid-American Conference history.
Chris Howard
President, Robert Morris University
Harvard M.B.A. and Rhodes Scholar who earned his doctorate from Oxford.
College football student-athlete and First Team Academic All-American.
Tom Jernstedt
Former NCAA Executive Vice President
Thirty-eight year career at the NCAA, serving as senior-level executive, including executive vice president, deputy executive director and chief operating officer.
Four-year scholarship football student-athlete at the University of Oregon (1963-1967).
Bobby Johnson
Former Head Coach, Vanderbilt University
Thirty-nine years of college football experience as a coach and student-athlete.
2008 Southeastern Conference (SEC) Coach of the Year.
Jeff Long
Vice Chancellor and Director of Athletics, University of Arkansas
More than 35 years of college football experience as an administrator, coach and student-athlete.
Has served in athletics administration, coaching or on staff at nine FBS institutions.
Rob Mullens
Director of Athletics, University of Oregon
Member of the Positive Coaching Alliance’s National Advisory Board.
Guided Oregon to its best finish ever in the Directors’ Cup, a national assessment of an athletic department’s overall achievements.
Dan Radakovich
Director of Athletics, Clemson University
More than 30 years of college football experience as an athletics director and football student-athlete.
Athletic administrative positions at five FBS institutions.
Gene Smith
Director of Athletics, Ohio State University
Over 40 years of college football experience as an athletics director, administrator and student-athlete.
Two-time winner of the Sports Business Journal Athletic Director of the Year.
Steve Wieberg
Former College Football Reporter, USA TODAY
Sportswriter for more than 30 years and top college football writer for USA Today.
Named by Chronicle of Higher Education as one of the “10 Most Powerful People in College Sports.”
Tyrone Willingham
Former Head Coach of Three FBS Institutions
Thirty-six years of college football experience as head coach, assistant coach and student-athlete.
Named 2002 Coach of the Year by ESPN and Home Depot.
Ah, time for more angst! The first in a series of weekly playoff rankings, and they had the gall not to put the Buckeyes in the top 45! Oh, the humanity!
Calm down, chums. There’s lots more football to be played, every team on the list has at least one, maybe two, potential losses. And if the Buckeyes don’t mind their own business and win out, who’s ranked where is a moot question anyway.
Go Bucks! Don’t let Iowa’s pink visitors’ locker room get in your head – play the game you’re capable of, and the rankings will take care of themselves in time!
I don’t get how they can “constructively” evaluate an undefeated Wisconsin, so as to place them below 6 other one-loss teams, but they can’t better evaluate all those one-loss teams without contradicting themselves, and employing some sort of circular logic? I smell stinky cheese.
Just a giant ESPN creation! Talking about it now and dissecting the limitless scenarios gives them programming and keeps countless faces employed. I for one will not be suckered in this year. Just my worthless opinion on a tiresome topic. I did see that ESPN and their mathematicians gave the Buckeyes a 55% chance of winning their remaining games. I could give my thoughts on that but that would be taking the bait. Nice try ESPN!
Actually Clemson has the best resume of 1 loss teams, they have beaten 2 top 15 teams. The quality of your loss does not matter for the playoff committee, it never has, except maybe as a 9th tiebreaker.
Did I listen right. We rank this team 4th because they had a game where their quarterback got hurt and there defense played like crap, and they lost but that doesn’tattee?
You’re using the same argument as people who said losing to Va. Tech should have disqualified Ohio State in 2014. Since playoffs began, the committee consistently has rewarded good wins more than one bad loss.
Like others, I’m not sure how Clemson is getting such a free pass.
But for the final rankings I’d like to see whatever SEC flavour-of-the-week at 1, OK at #2, Buckeyes at 3 and I really don’t care at 4. I want the Sooners again on our way to the Big One.
so…head to head counts..a LOT,…apparently for OSU/OK….but doesnt count for LSU and Auburn when each have the same amount of losses and LSU won , yet is ranked below Auburn? Because the OLY way Ok ranked ahead right now of OSU si the ehad to head–and i get it to an extent..but the inconsistency is what i dont like…it’s pretty obvious to anyone with common sense that Auburn is better than LSU–and the ranking shows it..and anyone with eyes can see that OK has gone downhill with no defense to speak of, not only losing but almost losing to hapless baylor and giving up tons of points to suck teams….if OSU wins out, winning at iowa, msu, at scUM and probably –and hopefully undefeated-Wisconsin…they cant be left out….and Clemson seems a bit overrated I agree…OSU needs to just focus and keep winning and it will play out if they do .
Not sure how Clemson that lost to a terrible Syracuse team is in the picture. OSU lost to the #3 team at the time. I have mixed feelings about where OU is. OSU just needs to win out and they are in. These rankings mean little for several more weeks, so I’m not going to get to worked up about it.
What in the Wide Wide World of Sports is GA doing up there? They’ve played no one tougher than West Cupcake State! Their schedule is laughable and their division even worse! Ridiculous!!!!!
Clemson has the worst resume of the 1 loss teams but they are ranked ahead of everyone. Makes no sense to me.
Meh. Kind of thought this is what they would be. At least now when (if) Ohio State moves up, haters can’t bitch about the selection committee being biased in favor of OSU. Not sure how Clemson is ranked 4 though. That seems like some BS.