And welcome back to the cover three podcast here on CBS Sports.

That's Tom Freneli, that's Bud Elliott, that's Danny Cannell.

I'm Chip Patterson coming to you live on CBS Sports Network,

fired up to look ahead at the Big Ten. Now we're going to do something a little bit different this

week because if you've glanced at the Big Ten schedule for week three, there are a lot of games

where Big Ten teams are heavily favored. So we want to go a little less micro,

a little more macro. Today's task, among other things, is we are looking at the path to the

college football playoff. Big Ten path to the playoff, we're going to be looking at a large

collection of teams who through two weeks still do have a path to the college football playoff,

what it's going to take to get there, and what it's going to take the Big Ten as a conference to match last year's one, two, three, four college football playoff bids.

So gentlemen, we're going to start with the ones that make the most sense. So we've got a group

that I would say is a top three that we all agreed upon coming into the season. That would be

Ohio State, that would be Penn State, and that would be the Oregon Ducks. Now, before we get to

Penn State and Oregon, we've got to give the Buckeyes a little bit of shine. Danny, what have you learned

from the Buckeyes so far? And is there anything that concerns you about their ability to make it to

the CFP? No, I mean, they clearly have the pieces to get there. But I think for Ohio State,

the question is, can you go back to back? Like, I think that's the bar that they set for themselves because they're an elite, you know, roster and they have an elite coaching staff. So I think the biggest question marks, I feel like are getting answered along the way. I mean, how do you not feel just as good or better about the job that Matt Patricia has done as a defensive play caller with a job he did against Arch Manning, some of the schemes that he was thrown out there. I think the defense has probably been

surprisingly better than I thought they might be early as with a new defense in place. The

amount of talent that they lost off of that team, Caleb Downs has lived up to his end of the bargain

of being probably the best defensive player in the country. And then the offense, I think, is still a work in progress. Like, I think this is very much an incomplete grade for me, but I don't think there's been anything alarming other than Jeremiah Smith, a couple drops in that game against Texas. But, like, I'm not worried about him. And I think Julian's saying they finally did open up the playbook a little bit for him,

let him throw some touchdown passes to kind of get his confidence up.

So I think Ohio State is exactly where they need to be on their road to repeating.

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