The Texas Longhorns may be the bane of the Ohio State Buckeyes' existence in December if both teams finish 9-3 after UT's head-to-head 24-23 win in Austin back in Week 2.
USA Today's Blake Toppmeyer believes the Buckeyes will be snubbed for the Longhorns if that situation unfolds in December, come CFP selection time.
"On Ohio State’s growing list of issues, include Texas," Toppmeyer wrote. "The Buckeyes lost at Texas with Sayin in the lineup, so if both teams finish 9-3 and there’s only room for one in the bracket, which do you think the committee will choose?"
Ohio State and Texas have both been ravaged by injuries since that fateful September night at Darrel K. Royal-Memorial Stadium.
The Longhorns lost left tackle Trevor Goosby for the year, EDGE Colin Simmons is out indefinitely, and now have star receivers Cam Coleman and Ryan Wingo dealing with shoulder injuries. Running back Hollywood Smothers and nickelback Grayson Littleton are both out for the year as well.
The CFP committee won't hold that against Texas, though, since starting quarterback Arch Manning is still running the show for Steve Sarkisian's offense. The Buckeyes would not be so lucky.
Julian Sayin's potentially season-ending throwing shoulder injury will be held against Ohio State, especially since true freshman Luke Fahey's debut resulted in a 30-18 loss to USC in Week 9.
Ohio State could suffer from the same fate as 2023 Florida State
Back in 2023, the Florida State Seminoles finished 13-0 with an ACC Championship. That wasn't enough to get FSU into the final four-team CFP field. Jordan Travis's season-ending injury was held against Mike Norvell's squad. Brock Glenn wasn't believed to be enough to keep the machine rolling, despite him leading the Seminoles to an ACC Championship Game win over the Louisville Cardinals.
Could history repeat itself with the Buckeyes in 2026? If it did, it'd raise many uncomfortable questions in Columbus.
Chief among them: would Ohio State be considered to have as much of a drop-off if Tavien St. Clair were under center instead of Fahey? St. Clair had massive preseason hype, compared to Patrick Mahomes, by some, but hasn't been trusted enough to be Sayin's understudy.
That then makes you ask another question of serious consequence: should Ryan Day be in trouble if his program is snubbed for UT? Frankly, that loss should've never happened, since Ohio State owned a 20-point lead in the fourth quarter. Day horribly mismanaged that game with timeouts down the stretch, and that's put the Buckeyes behind the 8-ball and without any cushion during the meatiest part of the schedule.
With how tough the 2026 schedule has been for Ohio State, not being the first 9-3 team considered for a CFP spot would be disastrous. That's doubly true since the Buckeyes would've been snubbed for a team they had dead to rights for 43 minutes.
We'll see if it gets to that. Day better hope it doesn't.
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