The Buckeyes follow up their national title season by navigating a tough schedule without a blemish in 2025.
From now until preseason camp starts in August, Land-Grant Holy Land will be writing articles around a different theme every week. This week is all about our Unreasonable Expectations. You can catch up on all of the Theme Week content here and all of our Unreasonable Expectations here.
Just about every year, we head into the college football season thinking Ohio State is going to go undefeated, win the Big Ten, and go on to win the national championship. Thankfully, the Buckeyes were able to win the national title last year, since they haven’t been able to accomplish the other two objectives recently. The last time Ohio State went to Indianapolis and won the Big Ten Championship Game was back in 2020.
The undefeated season drought has gone on even longer, as the most recent perfect season came in 2002 when the Buckeyes capped off their perfect season with an overtime win over Miami in the BCS National Championship Game. You can also count 2012 since Urban Meyer went 12-0 in his first year in charge at Ohio State, but that season deserves an asterisk since the Buckeyes self-imposed a postseason ban following the “Tatgate” scandal.
For teams in the Power 4 conferences, there isn’t as much importance to an undefeated season now that the College Football Playoff features 12 teams, and soon will be expanding to 16 teams. Last year, Ohio State lost two games but got hot at the right time and won four playoff games to earn another national title.
There could be an argument that going undefeated, winning your conference title, and earning a bye could be more harm than good. Just look at Oregon, which lost to Ohio State in the Rose Bowl after the Ducks finished the regular season undefeated before beating Penn State in the Big Ten Championship Game.
Photo by CFP/Getty Images
Going forward, going undefeated and earning a first-round bye will likely be a bigger deal. Last season, Oregon was just unlucky to have to take on an Ohio State team they barely beat in Eugene in the regular season. Had the Ducks played any other team, they likely would have advanced to at least the semifinals.
The other bye in the playoff went to Georgia, which had to deal with losing starting quarterback Carson Beck to an injury he suffered in the SEC Championship Game. If Beck ended up playing against Notre Dame, the Bulldogs might have found enough offense to squeak by the Fighting Irish.
After stating just how meaningless going undefeated was last year for Oregon, I must be crazy for expecting Ohio State to finish the season with no blemishes on their record this year. People will probably want me to be drug-tested for picking a team with a new starting quarterback, two new running backs, new offensive and defensive coordinators, and numerous other new starters on both sides of the football not to suffer a loss this season. As if that wasn’t enough, the Buckeyes open the season against Texas, which gave Ohio State their toughest game during their title run last season.
In my opinion, the Texas game won’t even be the toughest home game for the Buckeyes this year. That’ll come in early November when Ohio State welcomes Penn State to Columbus. Despite the Nittany Lions bringing back quarterback Drew Allar, running backs Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen, as well as poaching former Ohio State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles, the Nittany Lions still have James Franklin as their head coach.
Not only do we all know how cheeks Franklin is in big games, the Penn State head coach only has one win over Ohio State, and that only happened because the Nittany Lions blocked a field goal in the fourth quarter and returned it for a touchdown in 2016.
The sneakiest game on Ohio State’s regular season schedule this year will be on October 11th when the Buckeyes head to Champaign to take on Illinois. Bret Bielema certainly has been doing a lot of talking this offseason after his Fighting Illini squad won 10 games last season. I’m just not convinced that Illinois isn’t one of those overhyped offseason teams that fail to live up to expectations. One thing that is for certain is that Ohio State will be the toughest team Illinois will play during the regular season since the Fighting Illini don’t have to play Oregon, Penn State, Michigan, or even Iowa.
Then there is Michigan to close out the regular season. Ever since Ohio State lost to Michigan in 2021, marking their first loss to the Wolverines since 2011, each year, Buckeye Nation has been pounding their chest and claiming this year things were going to be different. Last year was the perfect opportunity to snap the losing streak to Michigan with Jim Harbaugh gone and truly awful play at quarterback from a number of players.
Unfortunately for Ohio State, Ryan Day coached down to Sherrone Moore’s level, allowing Michigan to play the game they wanted to play in the 13-10 victory for the Wolverines.
If last year’s loss didn’t show Day that he needs to do something different against Michigan, then there isn’t any hope for the Buckeye head coach when it comes to the rivalry. What made the loss even more puzzling is how Ohio State responded in the playoff.
While it’s hard to be too up in arms about the loss now that we know the Buckeyes would go on to win the national title, there was about three weeks where it was incredible stressful at trying to figure out how Ohio State would come out against Tennessee, as well as how Buckeye Nation would respond to Day and the team in the home playoff game against the Volunteers.
Photo by Jason Mowry/Getty Images
No matter what Ohio State’s record is, they are going to have a big bullseye on them in every game. That’s just what you have to deal with when you are one of the most popular teams in college football. In every game, you are going to get the best shot from your opponent. There will be games that are easy, like last year’s non-conference games against Akron and Western Michigan.
Then there will be contests that don’t go as planned,d and the result is still in doubt in the fourth quarter. The season opener against Texas is going to go a long way in telling just how tough the Buckeyes will be this year, since the game in Columbus in late August should go down to the wire like the Cotton Bowl did in January.
Despite having to replace so much on both sides of the football, the Buckeyes will be very dangerous this year. Julian Sayin was a highly-touted recruit coming out of high school at quarterback.
Running back could be interesting with James Peoples and West Virginia transfer C.J. Donaldson. Purdue transfer Max Klare is going to bring a different element at tight end this year. All this and we still haven’t even mentioned that Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate are back at wide receiver.
When it comes to the Ohio State defense, there is one name you need to know. Caleb Downs. The safety should be a top-10 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft. Downs will have some help in returning starting cornerback Davison Igbinosun and linebackers Sonny Styles and Arvell Reese.
There are some questions the defensive line will have to answer, but there has been work done to address the depth, especially with the addition of North Carolina’s Beau Atkinson in the transfer portal. Expect some underclassmen at linebacker and in the secondary to start to make a name for themselves.
Is it unrealistic to expect a team to go perfect in a season where they are playing 15 or 16 games? It probably is these days, especially since we have seen there is more margin for error than before with the expansion of the College Football Playoff. Just look at how many Buckeye teams in the past should have gone undefeated, and they just couldn’t; the 2015 season comes to mind immediately, as well as a number of John Cooper’s teams.
A perfect way for Ohio State to reassert their dominance in college football, along with Ryan Day establishing himself as one of the best coaches in the sport, would be to follow up a national title with an undefeated season and to defend their crown.