Buckeyes beneift from new college football format. The Ohio State Buckeyes are the answer to a new sports-trivia question: What team won the first College Football Playoff? The notion enhances the national championship for Buckeyes coach Urban Meyer, who won two national titles at Florida under the Bowl Championship Series system. “I think it’s unique because it’s college-football history,” Meyer said. By defeating Oregon 42-20 in Arlington, Texas, OSU won its first national title since 2002. The victory, though, almost certainly wouldn’t have been possible had the 16-year-old BCS not been discarded in favor of a four-team playoff. “It’s not possible to know for sure how the BCS would have turned out, because not all of the data is available,” said Jerry Palm, a college-football playoff expert for CBSsports.com, who has been ranking college teams since the BCS was introduced in 1998. “However, it’s pretty safe to say Ohio State would not have gotten a chance.”The often-criticized BCS relied on human polls and arcane computer rankings to select the two teams to play for the national title, and to set the matchups in its other bowl games. Under the playoff system this season, a 12-person selection committee chose four teams to participate on New Year’s Day in semifinals in the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl, with the winners meeting Jan. 12 in Arlington. Ohio State shot to No…
Continue Reading: Without new playoff format, title run doesn’t happen
