Ohio State’s 55-24 loss at Iowa in Week 10 last season is what kept the Buckeyes out of the College Football Playoff. They finished at No. 5 in the playoff rankings after beating Wisconsin 27-21 in the Big Ten Championship because they had taken a second loss — and had been throttled.

This year Ohio State has just one loss entering the Big Ten Championship, but it’s reminiscent of the loss to Iowa…

This time a 49-20 loss at Purdue (6-6), for which there is no precedent from the 16 teams that have made the College Football Playoff in the last four years.

Thirteen one-loss teams have made the playoff and those losses were by an average of 7.9 points.

Nine of the 13 losses were by seven points or less and four were by a field goal or less.

Here is the complete list of regular season losses suffered by playoff teams in the last four years.

School	Season	Playoff Seed	Opponent	Result	Opponent’s Reg. Season Record	Opponent’s Final CFP Ranking
Alabama	2014	No. 1	Ole Miss	Lost 23-17	9-3	No. 9
Oregon	2014	No. 2	Arizona	Lost 31-24	10-3	No. 10
Ohio State	2014	No. 4	Virginia Tech	Lost 35-21	6-6	N/A
Alabama	2015	No. 2	Ole Miss	Lost 43-37	9-3	No. 12
Michigan State	2015	No. 3	Nebraska	Lost 39-38	5-7	N/A
Oklahoma	2015	No. 4	Texas	Lost 24-17	5-7	N/A
Clemson	2016	No. 2	Pittsburgh	Lost 43-42	8-4	No. 23
Ohio State	2016	No. 3	Penn State	Lost 24-21	11-2	No. 5
Washington	2016	No. 4	USC	Lost 26-13	9-3	No. 9
Clemson	2017	No. 1	Syracuse	Lost 27-24	4-8	N/A
Oklahoma	2017	No. 2	Iowa State	Lost 38-31	7-5	N/A
Georgia	2017	No. 3	Auburn	Lost 40-17	10-3	No. 7
Alabama	2017	No. 4	Auburn	Lost 26-14	10-3	No. 7

 

The largest margin of defeat by a team that has made the playoff was a 23-point loss suffered by Georgia last season, when the Bulldogs lost 40-17 at Auburn. Georgia turned around and beat Auburn 28-7 on a neutral field three weeks later to win the SEC Championship. The Tigers were ranked No. 7 in the committee’s final rankings.

Purdue finished the regular season 6-6 this season.

Eight of the 13 losses suffered by playoff teams came against teams that finished in the final College Football Playoff rankings, including six against teams that finished in the top 10.

There have actually been three losses suffered by playoff teams to opponents that finished with a worse regular season record than Purdue’s this season. Clemson lost 27-24 at Syracuse (4-8) last season in a game in which Clemson starting quarterback Kelly Bryant was knocked out of the game at the end of the first half.

In 2015, Oklahoma and Michigan State both lost to a 5-7 team in the regular season. Michigan State lost at Nebraska 39-38 and Oklahoma lost on a neutral field to Texas 24-17.

But objectively, you can argue that no team has made the playoff after a loss with the combination of the margin and opponent of Ohio State’s 29-point loss to Purdue.

If No. 1 Alabama beats No. 4 Georgia in the SEC Championship and No. 14 Texas beats No. 5 Oklahoma in the Big 12 Championship, there’s a pretty straightforward path to the No. 4 seed for No. 6 Ohio State if the Buckeyes win the Big Ten Championship.

But if Oklahoma wins the Big 12 Championship and/or Georgia wins the SEC Championship, Ohio State will have to compete with at least one other team that has a 12-1 record, is currently ranked higher than Ohio State and doesn’t have nearly as glaring of a loss as the Buckeyes.

The College Football Playoff era is still in its infancy so it can be risky to make sweeping generalizations about the playoff selection committee’s past decisions, but Ohio State’s loss this season looks nothing like the other 13 experienced by past playoff teams.