well, from a Holy Buckeye chance of making the playoffs, the rankings were about as good as an Ohio State fan could hope for. Good for Wisconsin as well.
Wisconsin wins out, they're in. maybe even slight hope if they lose a heartbreaker to UM they could still get in.
Ohio St being ranked ahead of USC and TCU was huge.
ND at 8 is not a concern, Bucks can jump them "if" they win out. Auburn, UGA and BAMA, 2 of those 3 are gonna get stuck with a loss. Ideally, Bama wins out which would eliminate both Auburn and UGA. This virtually moves OSU up to 6th place if just that happens. And they get to play Wisconsin to move to 5th.
I think this is the biggest piece of the puzzle, if Alabama loses either against Auburn or UGA I think a 1 loss Bama is going to get in over Ohio State, barring Alabama losing to Auburn by 30 points, which I think most would agree is highly unlikely.
The next biggest piece of the puzzle would be rooting for an epic Miami choke in the next 2 weeks. If Miami meets Clemson in the ACC title and they both have a loss, then the loser is out and that let's Ohio State move to 4th. Sign seal delivered the Bucks are in the playoff.
If Miami lost to Clemson in the ACC title, and it was a great game, then I think it's razor thin whether you take a 1 loss Miami or a 2 loss BIG 10 champion Ohio State. This could go either way, and might depend on how both squads looks the next 3 weeks.
Finally, ideally, I don't think this has to happen, but you want OU to win out. You don't want to see a TCU or someone upset OU and then you have a 2 loss OU being compared to Ohio St when Ohio St lost to them. I think Ohio St might be ahead of OU if that happened, but I think this also opens the scenario for the committee to then say "well, we think USC is better than both" and then puts USC in to avoid the OU/OSU controversy.
Pretty amazing, after the Iowa loss I put Ohio State's chance of making the playoff at 2%. Now, they're still on life support, but it's maybe a 20% chance to make it. Gotta win 3 games though, 2 which are pretty tough and this teams been pretty schizophrenic so who knows if they can even do that.