Rose, Fiesta, Peach likely bowl spots
Buckeyes’ fate rides on Big Ten championship
When Michigan upset Ohio State last week, it saddled the Buckeyes with a second loss that virtually eliminated them from the College Football Playoff.
The Wolverines will again shape the postseason outlook for the Buckeyes this weekend.
Much of it comes as a result of the Big Ten championship game.
If they prevail against Iowa in Indianapolis on Saturday night and sew up a spot in the playoff when the field is set the following day, it will position Ohio State to receive a bid to the Rose Bowl.
The “Granddaddy of Them All” is to pair the Big Ten and Pac-12 champions in its matchup on Jan. 1 in Pasadena, California, but as part of its agreement with the conferences, it will be left to take another Big Ten team if the
Wolverines, who were ranked No. 2 in the penultimate rankings released Tuesday, reach the playoff.
Such a scenario leaves Ohio State as the probable replacement.
Laura Farber, the chair of the Rose Bowl management committee, said the bowl game would likely pick the nexthighest ranked team from the Big Ten, putting the Buckeyes in line for a berth. They are No. 7 in the playoff rankings, four spots ahead of Michigan State and
six spots ahead of Iowa.
“We tend to take the higher-ranked team,” Farber said, “because, really, if you think about it, all the people looking at these teams have spent energy and time looking at their body of work, all the stuff that they analyze with these rankings.”
She said the Rose Bowl is not “predetermined” to nab the next highestranked team if Michigan is unavailable, but added it’s their preference to follow the selection committee’s order.
“We just feel more comfortable that the consensus is if that team is ranked higher, that (spot) really should go to that team,” Farber said.
A provision in the Rose Bowl’s selection criteria allows it to pick a lower-ranked team if it is among a “cluster” of others in the rankings, but Farber also didn’t expect that to be an issue this postseason.
The rule is in effect to allow the bowl to pass on a higher-ranked team that has made multiple recent trips, where depressed enthusiasm among fans for a repeat visit makes it less likely that they’ll travel for the game and sell out their ticket allotment.
“That’s what it’s more designed for,” Farber said. “When you have a team that’s really been in our game several times, it gives us a little more flexibility. Everybody’s on board with that and understands that. But usually without that kind of a scenario, we are going to usually take the higherranked team.”
Ohio State was most recently in the Rose Bowl in 2018, but it has been to Southern California only one other time over the past two decades.
“They’re a great team,” Farber said. “They have a great fanbase. They’re great players. They’re coached well. We love all our Big Ten teams, but I mean, they travel well. They’re wonderful. They’re a pleasure to work with. We’d be thrilled.”
They would face the winner between Oregon and Utah, who were meeting in the Pac-12 championship game in Las Vegas on Friday night. A victory by the Ducks would set up a potential rematch of their Sept. 11 game in Columbus.
The postseason fate for the Buckeyes becomes murkier if Michigan falters against Iowa.
Set back by two losses and ranked outside the top 10 this week, the Hawkeyes are unlikely to climb into the top four.
Projections from the forecasting website Fivethirtyeight give them only a 26% chance to make the playoff with a win over the Wolverines, meaning they would likely represent the Big Ten in the Rose Bowl as the league’s champion.
In that case, the Buckeyes would still likely end up in a New Year’s Six Bowl, especially if they hold their spot in the rankings. No team higher than No. 10 in the final playoff rankings has missed out on a bid to one of the top six bowl games.
The likely landing spots are then the Fiesta and Peach bowls, both without conference tie-ins like the Rose Bowl or the Sugar Bowl, which is affiliated with the Big 12 and SEC.
The playoff’s selection committee will assign the few at-large teams to those sites on Sunday.
Ohio State has been a frequent participant in the Fiesta Bowl, which will be held this year before the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day. Including its last trip in 2019 for a semifinal game against Clemson, the Buckeyes have been there seven times since 2002.
But they have never been in the Peach Bowl, which had previous conference tie-ins with the ACC and SEC before it became a part of the New Year’s Six in 2014.
That would make the Buckeyes especially appealing to the Peach Bowl, held Dec. 30 in Atlanta.
“We’d be tremendously excited to have Ohio State,” said Gary Stokan, the bowl’s CEO and president, noting the novelty of having the Big Ten’s flagship program.
Joey Kaufman covers Ohio State football for The Columbus Dispatch. Contact him at jkaufman@dispatch.com or on Twitter @joeyrkaufman.