Matt Hardigree

Read All My Posts »

Ohio State enters the 2026 season as the reigning national champion’s chief rival for preseason hype — ranked No. 1 in ESPN’s initial Football Power Index and the trendy pick in several outlets’ way-too-early bracket projections. But before any of that matters, the Buckeyes have to get through a schedule that their own athletic department has openly called one of the toughest in the country. The question worth asking isn’t whether Ohio State is talented enough to win a title. It’s whether this slate is rugged enough that even a very good Buckeyes team could stumble to 9-3 — and if it does, whether that’s still good enough for the College Football Playoff.

By the school’s own count, nine of the Buckeyes’ 12 regular-season opponents either reached the CFP or played in a bowl game in 2025, and seven of them won at least nine games that season. Add up the 2025 records of Ohio State’s nine Big Ten opponents and you get a combined winning percentage north of .600 — a brutal number for a conference slate.

A few things stand out immediately:

Five true road games, including trips to two teams that made the 2025 CFP semifinals. The season opens with a Week 2 rematch at Texas, closing out the home-and-home series after Ohio State’s narrow 14-7 win in Columbus last year, followed later by a trip to Indiana on October 17th, the reigning national champion, and a first visit to USC since 2008 on October 31st. The Buckeyes will also make their first trip to Iowa’s Kinnick Stadium since 2017. Road trips to Texas, Iowa, Indiana, USC and Nebraska leave almost no margin for error away from the Horseshoe.

A CFP semifinalist at home, too. Oregon comes to Columbus on November 7th. Only two Big Ten teams have posted winning records against Ohio State this decade — Michigan and Oregon — and the Buckeyes will host both within the final four weeks of the regular season.

The Michigan game closes the regular season again, on Nov. 28, with a trip to Indiana and a home date with Oregon both looming in the weeks before it. A closing stretch of Indiana (road), Oregon (home) and Michigan (home), separated only by Northwestern and Nebraska, is about as demanding a finish as any team in the country will face.

Why 9-3 Is a Real Possibility, Not a Doomsday Scenario

Ohio State’s roster is loaded. Quarterback Julian Sayin returns after a Heisman-finalist redshirt freshman campaign, and Jeremiah Smith — already the most productive receiver in program history through two seasons — is back for one more year in Columbus. Ohio State ranks among the national leaders in returning offensive production, bringing back roughly seven in ten snaps’ worth of output from a year ago.

But the defense that carried Ohio State to the 2024 national title and a Big Ten title game appearance in 2025 was gutted by the NFL Draft. The Buckeyes had four players go in the first 11 picks of the 2026 draft, three of them defenders — receiver Carnell Tate plus linebackers Arvell Reese and Sonny Styles, and safety Caleb Downs. As a result, the defense returns only about half of last season’s production, a figure that ranks in the bottom third nationally. That’s a real question mark heading into a schedule with almost no easy weeks after October.

There’s also a late-season track record worth noting. Through 12 games in 2025, Ohio State looked nearly unbeatable, winning everything but the Texas opener by an average score of roughly 39-8. But when it came time to close, the offense stalled — the Buckeyes managed a combined 24 points in losses to Indiana in the Big Ten title game and Miami in the CFP quarterfinals, both defeats built around an overly conservative approach late in games. If a similarly cautious style resurfaces against this year’s closing gauntlet of Indiana, Oregon and Michigan, three losses in that stretch alone isn’t far-fetched.

Put it together — a true road loss at Texas, Indiana or USC, a slip-up somewhere in the Oregon-Michigan stretch, maybe an upset bid from Iowa or Nebraska — and 9-3 isn’t a pessimistic outcome. It’s a very plausible one for a team replacing this much defensive production while playing this schedule.

So Would 9-3 Be Enough for the Playoff?

Here’s where the format matters as much as the record. The CFP is staying at 12 teams in 2026, but the automatic-qualifier rules changed after realignment talks between the Big Ten and SEC broke down without a deal on expansion. Each Power Four conference champion — from the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten and SEC — is now guaranteed a spot regardless of final ranking. The highest-ranked Group of Six team also earns an automatic bid, and Notre Dame can qualify as an independent if it finishes in the top 12. Everyone else fills out the field as at-large selections, seeded purely by the committee’s final rankings, with only the top four teams overall earning first-round byes.

That structure gives a 9-3 Ohio State two realistic paths in:

Path 1: Win the Big Ten. If the Buckeyes go 9-3 but that includes a Big Ten Championship Game win, they’re in automatically — no ranking required, no committee debate. Given the schedule, a 9-3 team that beats Indiana, Oregon and/or Michigan somewhere along the way to Lucas Oil Stadium and wins there would carry more than enough quality wins to make that plausible.

Path 2: An at-large bid on the strength of schedule. If Ohio State doesn’t reach the title game, a 9-3 at-large case becomes a resume argument — and here the Buckeyes’ brutal slate actually works in their favor. A 9-3 record built on wins over the likes of Texas, Indiana, USC, Oregon or Michigan, with all three losses coming against genuinely strong opponents, is a very different case than a 9-3 team that padded its record against a soft schedule and lost to mediocre teams. The selection committee has rewarded strength of schedule and a “best three losses” argument over a cleaner record built on a weaker slate; in 2025, an 8-5 Duke team with no marquee wins was left out entirely, while 10-3 Alabama got in on the strength of who they played and beat.

The math gets tighter, though, if other Big Ten contenders also finish with strong resumes. Analysts already project this could be a three-bid year for the conference, with Oregon, Ohio State and Indiana viewed as the league’s strongest playoff bets and several others given outside chances. If Indiana, Oregon and Ohio State all finish somewhere in the 9-3 to 11-1 range, seeding — and head-to-head results — will matter enormously. An Ohio State team that lost directly to one of its direct competitors could find itself squeezed out if the at-large math gets crowded near the bottom of the field.

The Bottom Line

Ohio State’s 2026 schedule is genuinely one of the hardest in the country — five true road games, two CFP semifinalists on the slate, and a closing stretch of Indiana-Oregon-Michigan that would stress-test any roster, let alone one replacing three defensive first-round picks. A 9-3 finish wouldn’t reflect a team underachieving; it would reflect a team that played one of the nation’s toughest schedules and lost a few close ones to elite competition.

Under the current 12-team format, that record should still be good enough for the Playoff in most realistic scenarios — either by winning the Big Ten outright, which comes with an automatic bid regardless of ranking, or by leaning on strength of schedule to win the at-large argument. The one situation where it gets dicey is if Ohio State’s three losses include head-to-head defeats to the same Big Ten teams — Indiana, Oregon — it’s competing against for playoff positioning, and the conference ends up sending three or four teams that all finish with similar records. In that crowded scenario, being 9-3 with the wrong losses could matter more than being 9-3 at all.

For a program that’s made the field in three of the first three years of the expanded Playoff, the safer bet is still that 9-3 gets Ohio State in. But this schedule means the Buckeyes will have to earn every bit of that resume.