On a night where it needed to make a final and lasting impression to bolster its postseason hopes and dreams, Ohio State delivered a bold statement on a big stage.
Following an obliteration and total evisceration of Wisconsin to notch the first Big Ten Championship of the Urban Meyer era Saturday night in Indianapolis, the Buckeyes earned the fourth and final spot in the first-ever College Football Playoff. They'll play No. 1 Alabama in the Sugar Bowl Jan. 1.
With a national audience on hand to watch them slaughter the Badgers, 59-0, they flexed a set of muscles that have grown considerably over the course of the season.
And according to playoff selection committee chair Jeff Long, therein lies why Ohio State leaped over TCU and staved off Baylor on a day where the national picture finally cleared once and for all.
“I think in the conference championship game, Ohio State demonstrated they were a complete team,” Long said on ESPN Sunday.
And the Buckeyes, which have had to overcome the loss of starting quarterbacks Braxton Miller and J.T. Barrett in the span of three months, did so emphatically.
Long added the committee took into account its non-conference schedule and more or less absolved it of a bad loss to Virginia Tech in Week Two (meanwhile, TCU lost to Baylor and Baylor lost to West Virginia).
"It was really about Ohio State’s movement up," Long said. "It was more about Ohio State than TCU ... it was decisive."
He added: "They were voted in there clearly — clear cut over five and six."
