With three weeks remaining in college football's regular season, the teams that play for their respective conference championship games are starting to take shape. For the Ohio State Buckeyes, clinching a spot in the Big Ten Championship Game in Indianapolis is within reach.
The Athletic's Ralph D. Russo just doesn't know if it's truly earned. Russo called out OSU, the TAMU Aggies, and the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets for not having to play some of the top teams in their conferences before making the conference championship.
"Texas A&M could make SEC champ game w/o playing Ole Miss, Bama, UGA, OU, Vandy. GTech could make ACC title game w/o playing Miami, Lville, UVA, SMU, Duke. Ohio St could make B1G title game w/o playing Oregon, Indiana, Iowa, USC," Russo prefaced before saying, "This is not a good way to determine a champion."
Unfortunately, the shortsightedness of the college football viewing audience always shows up after the results don't go the way they were expected to in the preseason.
Ohio State had a decently strong schedule, on paper, before the season began. Then the Penn State Nittany Lions, Washington Huskies, and UCLA Bruins ended up being far worse than anyone could've imagined. It's not the Buckeyes' fault that the B1G ended up being a three-team league where two of them aren't on the schedule.
Georgia Tech can't help that the Clemson Tigers, Virginia Tech Hokies, and Syracuse Orange turned out as bad as they did. Ditto for TAMU, with the Auburn Tigers, Florida Gators, and LSU Tigers. Those schools weren't all supposed to be looking for their next head coach before the end of the 2025 season. All three thought they had a legitimate chance to make the CFP at the beginning of the season before the realities of their situations set in.
There's not much a team can do besides beat the opponents on their schedule. Too often, good programs are punished for playing teams that ended up far worse than anyone could've imagined.
That's what's happening with the Buckeyes, Aggies, and Yellow Jackets. But all they can do is continue to win, because these doubting tweets feel far better than looking in the mirror and wondering what went wrong after unfathomable losses.