Ohio State football has yet to play a ranked team.
While the Iowa Hawkeyes were ranked earlier in the season and the Buckeyes blew them out 35-7 Saturday at Ohio Stadium, they weren’t a top-25 side heading into the conference matchup.
The Buckeyes early-season schedule weakness was a well-documented point made by critics as they blew through their first three games without a Power 5 opponents.
Over the next month, fans will finally start to see what this team is made of.
They’ll have so much competition coming up that 247Sports ranked their schedule as the five-touchest one in college football, noting they play four ranked opponents in the next few months.
Here’s what columnist Brad Crawford said on Ohio State football’s upcoming schedule. Crawford ranked Ohio State’s upcoming games as the fifth-toughest schedule in the country.
“Those clamoring about Ohio State’s weak schedule thus far better go into hiding based on the second half of the season. The Buckeyes go to Oregon this weekend, travel to Penn State on Nov. 2 and endure the double-whammy of Indiana and Michigan over the final two weeks of the campaign. Considering their No. 2 in the AP Poll at this junction, Ohio State is in great position to reach the playoff by simply winning 10 games. However, that’s likely not going to be enough to get in the Big Ten title game, which is another priority for this team given Michigan’s reign,” Crawford wrote.
The Oregon Ducks, Michigan Wolverines, and Washington Huskies also cracked the top-ten toughest schedules. Two of those three opponents the Buckeyes will face before the end of the calendar year.
That said, the Buckeyes will square off with the No. 3 Ducks Saturday, their first real challenge of the season. Let’s hope their dominant ways continue in what should be a rowdy and chaotic environment in just a few short days.
