Thankfully, a disaster has been averted. For the past few days, there had been plenty of speculation that the Ohio State football team was going to get slapped in the face with the first College Football Playoff rankings for the 2025 campaign.
Ohio State gets the respect it deserves in first CFP rankings
That didn't happen, with the Buckeyes, 8-0 on the year and the reigning national champs, coming in at No. 1. The Indiana Hoosiers and Curt Cignetti find themselves as the No. 2 team in the country in the eyes of the CFP committee, which was the right call. Texas A&M is right behind them at No. 3.
Ohio State fans are pretty happy about how things went down, but not everyone is sharing that feeling. Immediately after it was revealed that the Buckeyes are at the top of the CFP rankings, both ESPN's Booger McFarland and Joey Galloway didn't hide their disappointment.
Booger McFarland and Joey Galloway both were not happy Ohio State is No. 1 in the CFP rankings
"To Joey's point, I think Texas A&M's resume, the way they look and what they've done, (it) deserves to be No. 1," McFarland said. "I think when you look at Indiana going on the road to Autzen to beat Oregon, they even had an opportunity - I would have put them at No. 1. I don't know if I would put Ohio State at No. 1 based on what they've done."
Come on, Booger. Yes, we're going to give Indiana a ton of credit, as the Hoosiers have looked sensational this season. Fernando Mendoza is playing like one of the top quarterbacks in the country and he's no question in the Heisman hunt. Texas A&M has been dominant too, with the road win at Notre Dame still being something that's discussed.
However, are we just going to forget about Julian Sayin, Jeremiah Smith and others? The argument here from McFarland and Galloway is that the Buckeyes haven't faced any serious contenders this season. A lot of us thought the Ohio State vs. Penn State showdown would potentially be a No. 1 vs. No. 2 battle, but instead the Nittany Lions entered that game 3-4, with James Franklin already fired.
Is that Ohio State's fault? Not at all. The Buckeyes have continued to play at a high level and if anything this group looks even better than the 2024 squad that won it all. Apparently that doesn't mean much to the ESPN talking heads.
"If we're going on records and analytics, Texas A&M is the best analytically over Indiana and Ohio State and they're sitting at three," Galloway said. "So they're (committee) going a lot off of an eye test and when you start telling me we're going off an eye test, now all of a sudden we have no idea where this thing is going."
Head man Ryan Day said earlier on Tuesday that he wasn't really going to care about the results of the rankings and that his focus is on Saturday instead. That's not a surprise, but luckily he doesn't have to worry about an angry locker room. If anything, however, both McFarland and Galloway have given Day's guys even more motivation to prove that Ohio State has what it takes to repeat as the champs.