The Ohio State Buckeyes hosted Michigan State last November on a day when Michigan State was playing without its starting quarterback, Connor Cook. The game wasn’t going to be a cakewalk, but it certainly was a game Ohio State should have won. The Buckeyes had the better talent. They had fewer key injuries. They were at home. Their offense just had to be average – ordinary – in order to win. Instead, their offense played one of its worst games of the Urban Meyer era. The Buckeyes needed Michigan State mistakes to score 14 points, but they couldn’t generate any offense on their own. They lost, and as a result, they didn’t defend their national title in the College Football playoff. They didn’t defend their Big Ten title. They didn’t defend a division title. They didn’t even make the Rose Bowl. Ohio State thumped Michigan and Notre Dame to close its season, but there was an unavoidable feeling of “what might have been.” Now the Buckeyes try to regroup and win the Big Ten this season.
Biggest Team Weakness
The Ohio State Buckeyes’ big weakness is at running back. Ezekiel Elliott, the highly-touted running back who was taken with the fourth pick in last spring’s NFL Draft, is a Dallas Cowboy. Ohio State has to find a way to fill his shoes, and it doesn’t seem likely that it will. The Buckeyes will probably go with a committee of running backs to spot Elliott. Curtis Samuel might be the best of the bunch, but he’ll be hard-pressed to find the individual brilliance Elliott so regularly conjured. If Ohio State can’t run the ball with notable consistency, opponents will be able to stop the Buckeyes’ passing game and turn OSU into a relatively one-dimensional team. Ohio State’s offensive line is solid, but runners have to be strong enough to take advantage of that fact, and if the drop-off from Elliott to the 2016 group is considerable, that will probably cost Ohio State a game at some point in the season.
Biggest Team Strength
The strength of the team in a larger context is its coach. Urban Meyer is one of the two best coaches in college football. Nick Saban is the other. Meyer has lost a total of just four games at Ohio State since joining the school before the 2012 season. His standards of excellence is so high – and so far above most of the competition – that a two-loss season is an absolute and unquestioned failure. A one-loss season such as last season feels unsatisfying. Meyer is that good. He is far above average in terms of developing quarterbacks and enabling them to make the most out of their skills.
Speaking of quarterbacks, the Ohio State Buckeyes offense can still be great because of J.T. Barrett. In 2014, he was a Heisman Trophy candidate before suffering a late-season injury. He learned a lot last season and played really well in the team’s Fiesta Bowl win over Notre Dame. If that’s the kind of player Barrett will be this season, OSU will be in very good shape.
Schedule
The Ohio State Buckeyes must visit Michigan State in East Lansing, but they do get to host Michigan, so that’s a split. However, OSU plays Oklahoma in September, and that game’s on the road. Ohio State did not take it easy with its non-conference schedule.
On the whole, this is a very easy schedule – for the most part – with a few serious, serious landmines. They’ll start with Bowling Green and Tulsa, which are easy wins. Then they’ll host teams like Rutgers and Indiana, which should produce more victories. Then they’ll play Wisconsin, Penn State, Northwestern and Nebraska. They’re better than all of those teams. But then there is the visit to Oklahoma, the visit to Michigan State and the final showdown against Michigan (which they host). There is at least one loss in there, if not too. That could be enough to throw off their CFP hopes.
Outlook
The Ohio State Buckeyes will lose to Oklahoma, but they will storm through the Big Ten. Michigan is not ready to beat the Buckeyes this season.
Projection: 1st In Big Ten East
