Ohio State football: Buckeyes have the talent to win it all in 2018

Schedule and Prediction

Before I make any predictions for this season, I’ll qualify all of this by saying that I am a Buckeye fan, and I have been for my entire life. I’ve seen a lot of very talented Buckeye teams fall short of expectations, and lose immensely stupid games that they have no business losing. That makes it very difficult for me to ever call for Ohio State to win all of their games, no matter how talented they are.

I’m sticking with that this year, though I only see one loss on this schedule. Despite being in one of the toughest divisions in football, this schedule is relatively manageable. If Haskins is awesome, and the linebackers are solid, I really don’t have much of anything to be concerned about with this roster, against a schedule with only about five games worth worrying about on it.

Prediction: 11-1

Ohio State doesn’t like to do things the normal way. They’ve gotta be special and different, and that rubs off not just on their style of play, their uniforms, their fan base, and everything about the program, but also in the games that they lose. The loss to Oklahoma in primetime last year was not the norm. Ohio State doesn’t like to lose those big games. They like to lose the baffling ones (eg. Iowa).

With that in mind, I think Ohio State tears through the first seven games on this schedule. Oregon State, Rutgers, Tulane, Indiana and Minnesota all feel about as close to sure things as a college football game can be. TCU will be tricky, but I’m not sure if Shawn Robinson will be good enough to beat this defense. Penn State in Happy Valley is always tough, but I don’t think the Nittany Lions are going to be all that great this year.

With seven games already under their belt from earlier in the season, I think Ohio State comes out of their October 27th bye week pumped up, and beats up on Nebraska and Maryland, while eeking out closer wins against what I expect to be very good Michigan State and Michigan teams. That leaves one loss, to the ultimate spoiler team: Purdue.

The game is in West Lafayette. After struggling last year, Jeff Brohm has significantly more talent to run his wonderful offense with. They lose a lot on defense, but I’m super high on their offense, and on that team as a whole. I don’t think the Boilermakers are going to be great, but I do have them winning seven or eight games, including an upset over Ohio State. Purdue could very well be undefeated coming into this game, so it’ll be a huge deal. The stars are aligning for a massive upset, and I’m pretty confident in calling my shot here.

Even with that loss, the Buckeyes are probably headed to a Big Ten Title, and a playoff in 2018, no matter who their coach is. Do they finally have the offensive diversity and overall talent to score a point in the playoff for the first time in four years?