If you believe Ohio State was the better team in the desert on the night of December 28, you have some company. Clemson won the game and made the plays it had to down the stretch, but the Buckeyes dominated for large portions of the game, missed out on a slew of breaks and opportunities and lost a close one.
But that didn’t stop the ESPN Football Power Index from keeping the Buckeyes at the No. 1 spot, ahead of both Clemson (who just knocked off OSU) and LSU. Both of those teams are preparing to play for a national championship in the Big Easy while Ohio State focuses on recruiting and preparations for the 2020 season.
According to ESPN’s explanation of how the FPI is calculated, The Football Power Index (FPI) is a measure of team strength that is meant to be the best predictor of a team’s performance going forward for the rest of the season. FPI represents how many points above or below average a team is. Projected results are based on 10,000 simulations of the rest of the season using FPI, results to date, and the remaining schedule. Ratings and projections update daily.
It didn’t predict the defeat at the hands of Clemson very well, so there’s that.
Here’s the rest of the top ten according to the FPI.
So there are a lot of Ohio State conspiracy theorists that believe ESPN is conspiring against them. One would think that such a sophisticated conspiracy would not have Ohio State still as the #1 team in their Football Power Index! 🤔🤦🏻♂️🤓 pic.twitter.com/Qj0kL0vmtL
— Dr. Clemson (@mikemcmannmd) January 9, 2020
Note that there are five SEC teams in the top ten compared to just three Big Ten teams. The ACC (Clemson) and Pac-12 (Oregon) has one team apiece.