Ohio State Might Be the Best Team That Finishes Outside the Top 15 in Wins

Ohio State has a top-six roster and projects to finish 8-4. If that sounds like a contradiction, it is the single hardest schedule on this list resolving itself in the win column. The Buckeyes are loaded, arguably a national-title-caliber roster on paper, but the projection makes them an underdog in three games. Ryan Day, in his eighth year, is not fielding a worse team. He is fielding a great one that has to run a gauntlet.

A roster with almost no weakness

Start with the talent, because there is a mountain of it. Julian Sayin grades among the best quarterbacks in the country, and the receiver room grades at the very top of the sport. The offensive line is elite, the defensive line is elite, and the secondary is excellent, led by Devin Sanchez. New offensive coordinator Arthur Smith inherits an offense stocked with high-end pieces at every skill position.

This is the kind of roster that wins a national championship in most years. There is no unit you can point to as a liability, with the mild exception of linebacker, and even that grades as merely average rather than weak.

So why 8-4?

Because the schedule is brutal in a way almost no other contender's is. The projection makes Ohio State an underdog on the road at Texas, on the road at Indiana, and at home against Oregon. Those are three of the best teams in the country. The point is not that Ohio State loses all three. It is that when you have to play that many elite opponents, you are likely to drop a couple, and the expected-wins math lands on four losses.

It is the clearest example on this list of a team whose record will badly understate its quality. Ohio State could lose four games and still be one of the five best teams in the country, and the selection committee will know it.

The schedule is the whole story

There is no soft stretch to bank wins during and no easy path through the Big Ten. Beyond the three toughest games, the Buckeyes are favored comfortably, so the season really does come down to how many of the marquee matchups they can steal.

Win two of the three against Texas, Indiana, and Oregon, and Ohio State is right back in the playoff conversation with a gaudy resume. Split them and the Buckeyes are a one-loss-caliber team wearing a two or three-loss record.

Bottom line

Expect 8-4 on paper and a team far better than that number suggests. Ohio State has the talent of a champion and the schedule of a bracket-buster. The roster is not the question. The question is how many elite opponents the Buckeyes can beat in a row, and that is the kind of problem only the best teams in the country are given.