The Ohio State Buckeyes probably don't need to win next week against TTUN or against the Indiana Hoosiers in the Big Ten Championship to punch their ticket to a second consecutive College Football Playoff field.
As Yahoo Sports' Ross Dellenger revealed, the Buckeyes, Hoosiers, TAMU Aggies, Georgia Bulldogs, and Texas Tech Red Raiders are essentially locks to make the 12-team field, regardless of what Week 14 and the conference championships entail.
"We’ve got three absolute locks for the 12-team playoff field: Ohio State, Indiana and Texas A&M. And 2 more likely locks: Georgia and Texas Tech," Dellenger prefaced before saying, "We know the ACC champion will be in the field, as well as the highest-ranked non-power league champion. That gets us to seven of the 12 spots filled."
Following a 42-9 win over the Rutgers Scarlet Knights on Saturday in the season's last clash in Columbus at the "Shoe," OSU is 11-0 with ranked wins over the Texas Longhorns and Illinois Fighting Illini, with a potential third-ranked win coming Saturday in "The Game" from Ann Arbor.
While many would point to the Buckeyes' weak schedule as a reason they should have to win at least one more game to make the field, it's certainly not Ohio State's fault that the Penn State Nittany Lions, Washington Huskies, and Wisconsin Badgers drastically failed to meet expectations this year.
From the perspective of the eye test, no team has looked as collectively dominant as the Buckeyes. quarterback Julian Sayin and receiver Jeremiah Smith, a potential No. 1 pick on the defense in Arvell Reese, and an ascendant running back in Bo Jackson, who finally looks to be picking up where Quinshon Judkins and TreVeyon Henderson left off, OSU is clearly the most talented team.
Forbid them from the CFP field and you're doing college football a collective disservice. Luckily, they, along with the Hoosiers and Aggies, are practically undeniable at this point.
And for the good of the sport, no chaos during the next two weeks should do anything to change that.