{"id":267630,"date":"2025-11-02T21:46:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T21:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/267630\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T21:46:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T21:46:07","slug":"paul-finebaum-predicts-who-will-be-no-1-in-initial-college-football-playoff-rankings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/267630\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Finebaum predicts who will be No. 1 in initial College Football Playoff rankings"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday, the first College Football Playoff<\/a> rankings of the season will be released. During an appearance on The Matt Barrie Show, ESPN\u2019s Paul Finebaum revealed which team he believes will be atop the debut rankings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would put Ohio State<\/a> No. 1, and I think the committee will put Ohio State No. 1,\u201d Finebaum said.<\/a> \u201cWe\u2019re using a very difficult metric because I really like what Texas A&M<\/a> and even Alabama<\/a> have done. I think if you\u2019re true to yourself, you have to go with Ohio State and I think this committee will.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really depends on what the philosophy is, and that\u2019s what this committee is about. It\u2019s about a mindset. And you said it a minute ago\u2014and I don\u2019t want to upstage all the ESPN morning shows on Wednesday\u2014but it really just doesn\u2019t matter. \u2026 I\u2019m going against my talking points here that the SEC delivers to us every Sunday morning on The Matt Barrie Show, but Ohio State should be No. 1.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s difficult to argue with Ohio State\u2019s claim to the top spot in the College Football Playoff rankings. The Buckeyes are 8-0 and boast the No. 1 defense in the country. The Buckeyes are only allowing a nation-best 6.9 points per game.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, the defending national champions continued their dominant run, strolling to a 38-14 win over Penn State<\/a>. In the victory, Ohio State amassed 480 yards of total offense compared to Penn State\u2019s mere 200.<\/p>\n

Buckeyes quarterback Julian Sayin<\/a> was pinpoint accurate, completing 20-of-his-23 pass attempts for 316 yards and four touchdowns, without throwing an interception. OSU wide receivers Carnell Tate<\/a> and Jeremiah Smith<\/a> combined for 247 receiving yards and three scores.<\/p>\n

The Buckeyes\u2019 backfield wasn\u2019t left out of the fun. Ohio State running back Bo Jackson<\/a> tallied 105 rushing yards in the win, more than Penn State\u2019s Kaytron Allen<\/a> and Nick Singleton<\/a>\u2018s combined total.<\/p>\n

With only one remaining ranked opponent on its schedule, Ohio State has an excellent chance of entering the postseason with a flawless record. While the Buckeyes have rarely been tested this season, they\u2019re far from satisfied.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were up by three points at halftime but it seemed like we were down by 21,\u201d Ohio State head coach Ryan Day<\/a> said after the game. \u201cWe were a much more focused team in the second half and I liked the way we were able to score on our first possession when we came out of the locker room. That\u2019s what good teams do when they are challenged in the first half.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Tuesday, the first College Football Playoff rankings of the season will be released. During an appearance on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-267630","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}