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Ohio State mostly cruised through the first 12-team College Football Playoff, punctuated by its 34-23 victory over Notre Dame in the national championship game Monday night at Mercedes Benz-Stadium in Atlanta.
Despite looking dominant at the same venue where the Southeastern Conference stages its league championship game, it still wasn’t enough for the Big Ten Conference to knock the SEC off its customary perch atop the 34th annual Times-Union College Football Power Rankings.
For the 16th time in the last 18 seasons, the SEC remained king in the T-U rankings because its overall depth from top to bottom overcame the Big Ten making history: three teams finishing in the top-5 of the Associated Press poll for the first time since its inception in 1936.
The SEC’s 16 teams finished with an average rating of +8.25, compared to +1.33 for the Big Ten.
As expected, college football’s two best leagues put significant distance between themselves and the seven other conferences.
Ohio State coach Ryan Day (L) and quarterback Will Howard led the Buckeyes’ run to their first national title since 2015.
The Big 12 finished third with a –22.06 rating, followed by the ACC (-25.94), Mountain West (-49.58), American Athletic (-52.07), Sun Belt (-59.28), MAC (-70.66) and Conference USA (-75.50).
Ohio State (14-2) was the runaway leader in the team power rankings with a record total of +173, thanks to an expanded CFP adding more games for the national champion to accumulate points. The Buckeyes pulled off the remarkable feat of beating all four teams ranked below them in the final AP poll.
Big Ten champion Oregon (13-1), which beat the Buckeyes in the regular season and lost the rematch 41-21 in the CFP quarterfinals, finished second in the team rankings at +121, followed by Notre Dame (+108), Georgia (+101) and Penn State…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/ohio-state-runaway-no-1-100419395.html
Author : The Florida Times-Union
Publish date : 2025-01-24 10:04:00
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