If you're going to lose to your archrival when it has five losses, it's best to have two top-10 wins in your back pocket.
That's the lesson Ohio State learned (extremely reluctantly, of course) when it landed at No. 6 in the College Football Playoff rankings on Tuesday evening. Despite having two losses with one being a rather humiliating one at home, the Buckeyes' wins over No. 3 Penn State and No. 9 Indiana were enough to all but lock up a home playoff game with their landing ahead of Tennessee.
As it stands, eight-seeded Ohio State would play the ninth-seeded Volunteers in the Shoe in the first round of the inaugural 12-team CFP, and CFP committee chairman and Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel cited those two wins as the top reason why.