By admin 
Stephen A. Smith can’t believe how far Ohio State dropped in the Week 3 college football Top 25 polls.
Read more Patriots RB TreVeyon Henderson (ankle) returns to practice
Ohio State fell to Texas, 24-23, in a stunning collapse on Saturday evening. The Buckeyes were leading 23-3, when Arch Manning and Co. ripped off 21 straight points, to take down Ryan Day’s team.
The Buckeyes dropped five spots in the Week 3 AP Poll Top 25 rankings. Ohio State fell to No. 6, coming in behind Texas, Georgia, Notre Dame, Indiana and Miami. LSU, Ole Miss, Texas A&M and Alabama rounded out the top 10.
Smith, though, is bothered by this. He’s furious that Ohio State dropped all the way to No. 6, after losing to the current No. 1 team in the country by just one point.
“There’s not five teams in America better than Ryan Day’s Buckeyes,” Smith said on ESPN’s “First Take” on Monday morning.
Smith still believes that the Big Ten is Ohio State’s conference to lose moving forward. He’s sticking with his pick.
Read more No timeline set for Myles Garrett’s post-surgery return to Rams
“Ohio State will win the Big Ten, not Indiana,” he proclaims.
Ohio State head coach Ryan Day is confident, too
Day made it clear that it was a fourth quarter game and the Buckeyes didn’t do the job in the fourth quarter, when things mattered the most.
“I think today we really played well for three quarters and then didn’t play well enough in the fourth quarter. That’s the bottom line,” Day said. “So, yeah, this one hurts. And I think that was the message to the guys in the locker room. We won the first three quarters and did not, obviously, win the fourth quarter.”
Ohio State can probably only afford to lose once more, if the Buckeyes want to reach the College Football Playoff.
But the Buckeyes are certainly capable of winning out and running the table en route to a championship.
Read more Mark Carney said no to Donald Trump. Now he must contend with the economic fallout
Copyright The Arena Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved
This story was originally published September 14, 2026 at 11:17 AM.