COLUMBUS, Ohio — When the second edition of this season’s College Football Playoff rankings were released on Tuesday night, the players, coaches and fanbase of third-ranked Ohio State each did their best impression of Buckeyes star defensive end Joey Bosa.
They shrugged.
It’s hardly the reaction any posting of the playoff poll would have elicited in Columbus at this time a year ago, when Ohio State was still in the midst of climbing from its initial No. 16 ranking to the fourth and final playoff spot in a six-week span. If anything was felt, it was disappointment that the Buckeyes weren’t ranked in one of the playoff’s coveted top two spots, which would give Ohio State a more favorable opponent and semifinal location if the second-year postseason format were to start today.
But cries about the Buckeyes’ most recent ranking—even from the most argumentative sector of its loyal fanbase—were few and far between on Tuesday night.
A part of that is perspective, the belief that with wins over No. 13 Michigan State, No. 14 Michigan and potentially No. 5 Iowa in the Big Ten Championship Game, Ohio State will be right where it needs to be when the final playoff rankings of the season are released on Dec. 7.
“We really don’t care about the rankings,” Buckeyes linebacker Raekwon McMillan asserted on Monday. “As long as we’re in the Top Four.”
Another part of Ohio State’s ambivalence toward this year’s rankings, however, can be attributed to the same sense of…
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