Ohio State and Michigan football are on a collision course this Saturday, meeting as undefeated teams for the third time in history.
The Buckeyes remained No. 2 in the fourth iteration of the College Football Playoff rankings while the Wolverines remain No. 3. As far as rankings committee chair Boo Corrigan sees it, both teams are close to equal, though he credits OSU with having a win over Notre Dame to go along with the mutually shared Penn State win.
“Two really good teams, two teams that are good on both sides of the ball,” Corrigan said. “Michigan to get the blocked punt for a safety last week, to scoop and score; Ohio State to put up in excess of 430 yards against Minnesota, I think both teams continue to get better as they go through this. Michigan has been dominant, and Ohio State has got the win over Notre Dame as well as Penn State.
“Like every college football fan, we’re excited to watch the game and watch two really good teams play in The Big House and see what happens from there.”
Ohio State put up 434 yards of offense against Minnesota, which is indeed more than Michigan’s 432 yards of offense vs. the Gophers (though Michigan put up 15 more points total, thanks to two pick sixes).
Still, both teams are ranked ahead of Washington, which rose from No. 5 to 4 in the latest rankings. The Huskies have more ranked wins than either the Wolverines or Buckeyes, but the latter teams have been more dominant across the board, Corrigan says.
“Again, I think they’re both really good teams offensively and defensively,” Corrigan said. “To your point, I think the committee in looking at Washington, there were a couple of weeks with Arizona State in the Stanford game where we wanted to see a little bit more from Washington, and as I alluded to earlier, they’ve had six consecutive quarters and given up a total of 20 points, including against Oregon State that averages 36 points.
“I think it all plays in together, and from watching games to statistics to schedule to everything, and we’ve got one more week of data points.”
Certainly, the loser of The Game on Saturday will be out of the playoff picture, barring pandemonium in championship week, which, did happen last year. However, there would be a lot that would need to happen to catapult the loser in, so this upcoming game really is like winner take all.