There is so much to get to on this episode of the Buckeye Breakdown from the College Football Playoff to the Buckeye's guard rotation.
The third release of the 2025 College Football Playoff Rankings started quite a dispute from top to bottom. The Ohio State Buckeyes and the Indiana Hoosiers stayed put at one and two, while then nearly every spot after that sparked a conversation.
Despite the Texas A&M Aggies hardly beat the South Carolina Gamecocks, the SEC frontrunner stayed undefeated, forcing them to remain at the No. 3 seed. But one spot below them is the Georgia Bulldogs, who are looking at the rare double bye.
Texas Tech has the inside track to get into the top-four, and if they run the table and win the Big 12 Conference with one loss, the program should receive a coveted first-round bye.
Ole Miss at six makes sense on the other hand, but their wins this season are widely viewed as fragile. At the No. 7 spot, the Oregon Ducks have one "quality" win on their schedule against Penn State, while the No. 8 Oklahoma Sooners took care of business against Alabama in impressive fashion. To round out the ninth seed, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish are going to be the focal point of just about every conversation this winter.
Another SEC powerhouse comes in a the No. 10 spot in the Alabama Crimson Tide, who basically need to win the SEC Championship to make the playoff, while the No. 11 Miami Hurricanes are in the midst of six-team battle for the ACC's automatic bid. The Tulane Green Wave rounds out the bracket with the one Group of Five bid, was is insane in its own right. They are likely one of the least deserving G5 teams, but they got the nod regardless.
The playoff conversation is vast and will continue to be a fun one over the next three weeks.
Third CFP Rankings Lead to Conversation | Buckeyes Defense By The Numbers | Keys to the Game
The third edition of the College Football Playoffs was released on Tuesday, and the Buckeyes stayed put. Below them, it is total chaos. Georgia is looking at...
Aiming the conversation back to the Buckeyes, Ohio State is still navigating through two very significant wide receiver injuries to two of the best players in college football.
Junior Carnell Tate has missed the last two games, while sophomore phenom Jeremiah Smith played only a quarter and a half last weekend. Head coach Ryan Day is trying to play off the injuries, but it isn't hard to read between the lines. He did something very similar a few years back with former Buckeyes' star Jaxon Smith-Njiba, who ended up missing an entire season.
The scenarios are a bit different but the communication is eerily similar.
On the same side of the football, the Buckeyes are employing a two-man rotation at the right guard position last Saturday. Gabe VanSickle made his first appearance for the Buckeyes up front and played well, splitting snaps with Tegra Tshabola. Day was asked about the rotation this week, telling reporters that it would stay a two man rotation, so one guy will get left out when Josh Padilla returns.
Today's show wraps with a fun dive into the Buckeyes' defensive numbers and then keys to victory for the Ohio State defense against the Rutgers Scarlet Knights.