Ohio State vs Texas Will Be First Season-Opening No. 1 Vs No. 2 Game in History
MSN - Ohio State’s upcoming season-opening game against Texas was always going to be a blockbuster affair. It’s two College Football Playoff contenders meeting each other right out of the gate. It’s the place to be in Week 1, and the whole college football world knows it. ESPN’s College GameDay will be there. So will FOX’s Big Noon Kickoff. And the game that everyone is looking forward to just got more historic.
With the release of the preseason USA TODAY US LBM Coaches Poll, the game will also be a battle between the top two teams in the country. Those games are rare, certainly, but not unheard of. While the BCS all-but guaranteed them occurring at least once a year in the postseason, they happen an average of once every few years in the regular season.
Perhaps the more common occurrences in the postseason will make them less special (though with the College Football Playoff now at 12 teams and possibly expanding further, the likelihood of such games has decreased), but they’re still rare and monumental occurrences in the regular season.
What makes the upcoming Ohio State vs Texas game so special, though, is that it will be the first time in history that such a game will open the season. That’s right. Since college football polls started in 1936 (AP Poll; the Coaches Poll started in 1950), there has never been a No. 1 vs No. 2 game in Week 1. It remains to be seen if the AP Poll will agree with the top two (those rankings debut next Monday), but with the US LBM Coaches Poll out, it’s guaranteed.
Of course, late-season No. 1 vs No. 2 games mean more, because we know a lot more about the teams when those rankings are given. Preseason rankings are an educated guess, and can end up wrong--due to injuries, other issues, or just being wrong. Still, it’s very cool to be part of history.
Another interesting part of history? There has only been Week 2 games in college football history between the top two teams in the rankings. That game came back in 2006. The teams competing? Ohio State and Texas. (The Buckeyes won that one 24-7.)
