How Saturday's Cancellation Impacts Ohio State's Championship Aspirations
There has always been a very real possibility that Ohio State wouldn't be able to present a 9-game resume to the College Football Playoff selection committee.
Wednesday's news that Saturday's Ohio State vs. Maryland game is canceled is disappointing to Buckeye Nation, without a doubt.
The game is not going to be rescheduled, as the Big Ten instituted an 8-game regular season over eight consecutive Saturdays and the league has already dealt with canceled games elsewhere.
But this is far from Ohio State's worst nightmare.
The reason for the cancellation came from outside the Buckeyes' control. Eight Maryland players have been diagnosed with the virus in the past seven days and the appropriate contact tracing associated with that puts the entire Terrapins program in a tough spot.
Ryan Day has said on several occasions that his team can only control what's going on within its own building. The Buckeyes are well aware of what happened to Wisconsin with having games canceled the last two weeks and how their Big Ten championship hopes are fading fast as they flirt with the minimum number of games required to qualify for the title game. Nobody in America would be willing to trade places with Wisconsin right now.
Ohio State vs. Maryland Cancelled by Terrapins' CoVID-19 Outbreak
In fact, Day went so far as to say that in some ways, every time they take the field they feel like they've had a minor victory. Playing during a pandemic has a lot of complications and is far from a perfect setting. Every team in the conference knows the risks of trying to play under challenging circumstances.
I don't think this will impact Ohio State's chances of competing for a national championship. There's a very good chance that more than 50% of the teams in Division I college football are going to deal with a postponement or cancellation somewhere along the way this year. Day often talks about the need to handle every situation better than their opponents. While this time the opponent is invisible, the Buckeyes are continuing to control what they can control.
Currently, teams need to play in six of the eight regular season games to qualify for the Big Ten championship game. If the average number of league games falls below six, then teams must play no less than two fewer games than the average number of Big Ten games played in order to qualify for Indianapolis. This year's division champs are determined based on winning percentage. There are a number of additional stipulations to break ties, but winning percentage takes precedence for all qualified teams. For this reason, the Buckeyes shouldn't be concerned. But it certainly makes next week's home game against Indiana that much more meaningful.
That said, there is an unlikely scenario that could be hard for the Buckeyes to swallow. Should next week's game against Indiana be cancelled in the same way that Saturday's game against Maryland is cancelled, and should the Hoosiers and Buckeyes both play every game the rest of the year and win all of them, Indiana would finish 7-0 and the Buckeyes would finish 6-0. In that case Indiana could go to the Big Ten championship game as winners of the East Division.
While possible, I find that scenario extremely unlikely. In order for Indiana to have enough of a CoVID outbreak to cancel the Ohio State game, it stands to reason they would likely not be able to play the following week, in the same way that Wisconsin missed multiple games because of the Big Ten's 21-day return-to-play rule for any athlete that tests positive. Indiana would very likely be in the same position that Wisconsin and Maryland are currently going through, facing multiple canceled games. So if I'm an Ohio State fan, I'm not really worried about this actually happening.
Everything in college football feels day-by-day at this point, at most week-to-week. The situation can change so rapidly—you don't have to look any further than today's announcement for evidence of that. But provided that the rest of the season goes according to plan, and if the Buckeyes remain healthy, I don't see any reason why this weekend's canceled game would derail Ohio State's hopes of winning a national title.
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