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Should Auburn Or Missouri Jump FSU?

ATLANTA (CBSMiami) – Much of the talk over the last few days in college football has been the hypothetical question of whether Auburn or Missouri as a one-loss SEC Champion should jump an undefeated Ohio State in the rankings.

But, while the perception is that Ohio State is weaker overall; the truth of the matter is that Florida State's schedule and overall numbers are not demonstrably better than Ohio State's.

According to Jeff Sagarin's rankings, Florida State has a schedule rank of 66th in the nation. Ohio State actually has a tougher schedule than FSU coming in at 61st in the country, under Sagarin's ratings. Going further, FSU is just 1-0 against Sagarin's Top 30 teams while Ohio State is 2-0 against the Top 30.

Breaking the numbers down further, Florida State and Ohio State are the second and third best scoring offenses in the country at 53.7 and 48.2 points per game respectively. Ohio State is much better running the ball, but FSU is far stronger putting the ball in the air.

Overall, OSU and FSU are ranked sixth and seventh in the nation respectively in total yards per game at 530.5 and 526.1.

Heading into their conference championship games, FSU will face number 20 Duke while Ohio State draws a much tougher contest against the 10th ranked Michigan State Spartans.

If both FSU and MSU win on Saturday, the entire discussion becomes moot because voters will not elevate Missouri or Auburn above an undefeated OSU team. Still, if Mizzou or Auburn blows out the other team, things could get more interesting.

At that point, the question shouldn't be just whether the 1-loss SEC champion deserves to jump Ohio State, but also Florida State.

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