One of the biggest lessons college football has taught us this century is that the SEC is strides and strides better than the field. Looking back, there’s the occasional weak stretch—in 2016, there was only one nationally relevant SEC team, and that team did not win the national title—but beginning with the Florida blowout of Ohio State at the end of 2006, after we spent months being told Ohio State and Michigan were the best in the land, the message was hammered home again and again: The SEC is really freaking good. In national championship games from the 2000 season and beyond, the Southeastern Conference is 13-6, and three of those six losses came in championships played between two SEC teams. Take those three games out of the equation entirely and we find the SEC 10-3 against the rest of the country in the last 22 years.
Given this, it’s possible Georgia is light years beyond Ohio State in quality, and we’re well aware of that possibility, eying the (currently seven-point) spread like a cat watches a dog, unable to tell if it’s friend or foe. It’s also possible, though, that we’re in the midst of an SEC down year, or that Ohio State and Michigan have simply momentarily passed the guys down south.
Both the Big Ten and the SEC are and were, this year, three-team leagues. Penn State was a middle child, but the Nittany Lions project hardly behind Alabama and Tennessee in all three of Movelor, FPI, and SP+, and in Movelor, they make up the sixth part of an all-Big Ten/SEC top six. Was Penn State as good as Alabama or Tennessee? No. But that’s part of why their blowout victory at Auburn—the only game any of these six teams played against a member of the opposite league—catches our attention. We’d advise against using Auburn as your sole measuring stick for the best teams in the country, and neither Georgia nor Alabama had a shred of trouble with Auburn either, but if Penn State could pour 41 onto the Tigers at Jordan-Hare, it does make us ask a few questions, and the fact the limited displays of vulnerability from the six came mostly from Tennessee and Alabama, with Georgia scuffling as often against bad teams as Penn State did, keeps us asking them. Outside of Big Ten play, all three of Penn State, Michigan, and Ohio State had hardly any trouble at all. Is it possible these three are…good?
There’s also those rating systems we mentioned. Movelor has Georgia favored against Ohio State by just 3.7, or 6.7 if you call the Peach Bowl a home game. For SP+, the neutral-site number is 5.3 (making the home-field number 8.3, if you use the same adjustment we use for Movelor). For FPI, it’s down at 2.8 (and thus 5.8), giving us a final line somewhere between 2.8 and 8.3. Ratings systems in college football are a little notorious for struggling at the top, because splitting hairs between dominant performances is such a challenge (see: those three Auburn games), but the fact the numbers have it a one-score game and the fact betting markets evidently agree, even after a screamer of a narrative that Ohio State was blown out by Michigan and is actually somehow worse than TCU…that’s intriguing. Ohio State wasn’t really blown out by Michigan. It was a tight game and then Michigan—who’d admittedly worn down Ohio State but was up against it many a time—broke off a few big plays and bottled up a surrendering Buckeyes team. Decisive? Yes. A blowout? Not really. As for the TCU angle: Have you seen TCU’s box scores? These guys were a bunch of fun, but they also lost to Kansas State and had significant trouble in seven of their nine Big 12 games. They belong on the same field as Michigan in the sense that they earned their place, but in size and speed and talent and scheme, the Fiesta Bowl projects as a customary CFP semifinal supernova.
That size and speed and talent piece is important, and it brings us to the final plank in the Buckeye Platform™: The Ohio State Buckeyes have one of the three best rosters in the country.
Over the last seven years, only once has Ohio State finished outside the top five in the recruiting rankings. That’s a Georgia/Alabama level of recruiting success, and it’s arguably the biggest reason why the Buckeyes have so consistently been at the top of the national conversation. Under Urban Meyer, Ohio State became a football machine with a staggering capacity to fall on its face once or twice a year. That hasn’t really changed under Ryan Day. And while it takes a lot to win a national championship, the baseline qualification is having players who are big enough and strong enough and fast enough and talented enough, either through recruiting or magic. Georgia has those this year. Alabama had those this year. Michigan has those in some areas, but not in every position group. The only team that has those, besides Georgia or Alabama, is Ohio State.
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Viewing schedule for the day, second screen rotation in italics:
Bowl Games
- 12:00 PM EST: Camellia Bowl – Georgia Southern vs. Buffalo (ESPN)
- 3:15 PM EST: First Responder Bowl – Memphis vs. Utah State (ESPN)
- 6:45 PM EST: Birmingham Bowl – Coastal Carolina vs. East Carolina (ESPN)
- 10:15 PM EST: Guaranteed Rate Bowl (Copper Bowl) – Wisconsin vs. Oklahoma State (ESPN)
College Basketball (of note-ish)
- 8:00 PM EST: Seton Hall @ Marquette (FS1)
NBA (best game)
- 8:30 PM EST: New York @ Dallas (NBA TV)
NHL (best game)
- 7:00 PM EST: Washington @ NY Rangers (ESPN+)
Premier League (best game)
- 12:30 PM EST: Bournemouth @ Chelsea (USA)
EFL Championship (best game)
- 3:00 PM EST: Birmingham City @ Burnley (ESPN+)
