College Football Playoff Faces Tricky Call After Messy Year

Sermon, a one-time backup at Oklahoma who arrived at Ohio State this season as a graduate transfer, scored both of his team’s touchdowns.

The Buckeyes might have needed more, if not for several failures by Northwestern, including a missed field goal and an interception in the end zone.

“I kind of knew it was going to go like this today,” said Day, who was also without two assistant coaches, presumably also because of the virus. “It’s just the way this season has gone.”

If the Buckeyes have a raft of N.F.L. talent, they also will have to hope the playoff committee continues to give short shrift to their lightweight schedule, which includes relatively narrow wins over No. 11 Indiana and No. 14 Northwestern and four wallopings of teams with losing records.

Texas AM, which has been anchored in the fifth spot in the playoff rankings, is making its claim as the second-best team in the Southeastern Conference, college football’s marquee league. The Aggies, who are 8-1, dispatched Tennessee on Saturday in a perfunctory manner, 34-13. Their lone loss was a drubbing by top-ranked Alabama, but they do have a victory over Florida, whose only opportunity to enter the playoff conversation entering Saturday was to hope to pull off an upset against the Crimson Tide on Saturday night.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/19/sports/ncaafootball/college-football-playoff.html