Buckeyes miss the playoff; lock for Rose Bowl

The Buckeyes learned on Sunday that they will not be a part of the College Football Playoff as the No. 6 ranked team despite winning the Big Ten Championship Game last night against Northwestern. The Buckeyes finished the season with a 12-1 record and a title, but it was not enough to overcome a bad loss at Purdue earlier in the season, a loss of 29 points. Ohio State has now missed the playoff in back-to-back years despite winning the conference title.

It was a bit of an unprecedented season with four undefeated teams at the end of the year with Alabama, Clemson, Notre Dame and Central Florida all going through their regular seasons unblemished but with the Knights being outside of the Power Five, there really was no chance that they were going to get the nod over larger programs.

Ultimately it came down to a beauty contest between the Buckeyes, the Oklahoma Sooners (Big 12 Champions) and Georgia Bulldogs (2-loss SEC runner-up) for that last spot. Things might be different if Texas would have been able to knock off the Sooners and if Alabama would have been more convincing in their win over the Bulldogs.

The Buckeyes were a difficult team to figure out this season with an extremely up-and-down season that saw Urban Meyer suspended for the first three games of the season, the loss of top defensive player Nick Bosa among other things. Ohio State's defense was problematic for much of the season, highly prone to giving up the big play including seven plays of 70-plus yards. Ohio State let teams stick around too long in too many games including a 36-31 win over Nebraska and a 52-51 win at Maryland.

With that being said, Ohio State also had some great moments including a furious comeback at Penn State along with an epic output against Michigan that saw Ohio State put 62 points up against the Wolverines.

Ohio State seemed to be peaking at the right time with the last two games and if the season were a couple of weeks longer and there were a few more data points, maybe the Buckeyes would have had more time to change minds of the College Football Playoff committee, but that was not meant to be.

Dwayne Haskins should have an invite to New York as a Heisman Trophy finalist this season as he shattered many of Ohio State's single-season passing records this year and the Ohio State offense was as potent as any offense in the nation. But this team was not able to put it all together consistently enough to make their 12-1 record look better than other teams also in the mix.

The Buckeyes will learn their bowl destination later today but with the team missing the playoffs, it is pretty much a lock that the Buckeyes will be off to the Rose Bowl to take on Pac-12 Champion Washington in The Granddaddy of Them All.

We will have more later today including comments from Urban Meyer and a few leaders of the team as they are made available.