With college football around a month and a half away from kicking off, the venerable Phil Steele has released his yearly college football preview magazine.
Steele provides in-depth previews for all FBS teams and one of the best components of his magazines are his top 65 position group rankings. For offense, Steele ranks where each team’s unit falls for quarterbacks, running backs, receivers, and offensive line.
It’s difficult to project how a team’s specific unit will perform in a season as teams will have injuries, as well as players who overperform or underperform. Regardless, these lists provide us with expectations for teams and players headed into the season.
Ohio State has been spectacular on offense in recent years as it was a top-two-scoring offense in both 2022 and 2021.
With C.J. Stroud, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Paris Johnson Jr., Dawand Jones, and Luke Wypler all off to the NFL the Buckeyes are losing some great players. The good news is they’re also bringing back many high-quality players from last year’s unit and have players ready to step into bigger roles.
Ohio State fared pretty well on Steele’s lists as it was ranked in the top 10 in three of the four position groups. Here’s how it all shook out.
Quarterbacks
Rank: No. 43 in College Football, 4th in Big Ten
With C.J. Stroud going to the NFL, the Buckeyes will have a new signal caller for the 2023 season. The battle for QB1 comes down to Kyle McCord and Devin Brown.
McCord appears to be the favorite to win the job as he has one more year in the system. The former five-star has the arm strength and athleticism combination to develop into a star at Ohio State.
Brown also can’t be counted out in the QB1 race. He was the sixth-ranked quarterback in the 2022 class, throwing for 4,881 yards and 57 touchdowns his senior year for Corner Canyon High School in Utah.
While it’s understandable to default to ranking quarterback rooms with more experience higher than unproven quarterbacks the No. 43 ranking is pretty harsh. Both quarterbacks have the talent to develop into a star and either one will be in a great situation with a lot of talent around him on offense.
Running Backs
Rank: No. 2 in College Football, 2nd in Big Ten
After dealing with a lot of unfortunate injuries last season at the position, the Buckeyes enter this season with tremendous depth at running back.
Treveyon Henderson and Miyan Williams enter the season as the 1-2 punch. Both players when healthy are two of the best in college football, so that duo alone rivals just about any in college football.
Beyond that, Ohio State has numerous running backs who will — at the very least — compete for touches. Evan Pryor, Dallan Hayden, Chip Trayanum, and Xavier Johnson are all very viable options at running back and provide the unit with a lot of depth.
Receivers
Rank: No. 1 in College Football, 1st in Big Ten
It comes as no surprise whatsoever that the Buckeyes own the top-ranked receivers unit in college football.
Marvin Harrison Jr. and Emeka Egbuka are undoubtedly the best wide receiver duo in college football and are arguably the two best wide receivers in the country.
Julian Fleming — who was third on the team in receiving last season — is back. Jayden Ballard, a top 100 player in the 2021 recruiting class, could see significant playing time as a deep threat. Xavier Johnson who stepped up in big moments multiple times last season also returns to the Buckeyes for his sixth season.
At tight end, last year’s starter Cade Stover will be returning to the Buckeyes. He is yet another weapon opposing defenses have to worry about to complement the receivers on the outside. Joe Royer and Gee Scott Jr. are also back and provide good depth at the position.
They will also be bringing in a talented group of receivers in the 2023 class with Carnell Tate, Noah Rogers, and Brandon Inniss all being in the top ten ranked wide receivers in the class.
Offensive Line
Rank: 8th in College Football, 2nd in Big Ten
After losing three very good starting offensive linemen to the draft, this group is a bit of a question mark for Ohio State coming into next season.
Both of the guard spots are pretty much locked down with Donovan Jackson at left guard and Matthew Jones returning on the right side. Both tackle spots and the center spot are still up in the air, however, with multiple options at each position that will need to develop.
At left tackle, Josh Fryar looks like the favorite to be the starter, but George Fitzpatrick is a contender to start as well. At right tackle, San Diego State Josh Simmons looks likely to be the starter, but Tegra Tshabola and Zen Michalski are very solid options that could emerge as starters.
At center, the starting position will likely come down to Carson Hinzman and Jakob James with Hinzman currently the favorite to win the job — at least for now.
Despite having to replace Paris Johnson Jr., Dawand Jones, and Luke Wypler, Steele is still pretty high on the Buckeyes’ offensive line projecting it as a top-10 unit.
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