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 unpopular opinions.
You can catch up on all of the Theme Week content here and all our “Unpopular Opinion” articles here.
Ohio State is one of the nation’s elite college football programs. The Buckeyes are coming off their most recent national championship just a year and a half ago, and with a better finish to the season by the offensive line in 2025, could perhaps be celebrating back-to-back titles.
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While Julian Sayin, Jeremiah Smith, and other starters remain at or near the top nationally in their positions, college football is cyclical. Every program goes through ebbs and flows. While much of the discussion among the fan base and in the media is about how Ohio State will reload for 2026 (“At Ohio State, we don’t rebuild, we reload!”), I think the upcoming season looks more difficult than most will admit.
Here’s why I hold the unpopular opinion that the Buckeyes will take a step backward instead of forward in 2026.
Another Defensive Reset
For the second consecutive offseason, Ohio State must completely rebuild a defense that lost the bulk of its starters. Matt Patricia did an incredible job of building on Jim Knowles’ 2024 defense despite having to replace most of the previous season’s starters.
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Patricia lost seven starters of his own from 2025 and that includes two of the best holdovers he had from the Knowles era — Sonny Styles and Caleb Downs. Patricia will be able to replace everyone with talented dudes, but game changers like Styles and Downs are rare, and replacing an athletic freak like Arvell Reese might be wishful thinking.
While the defense should still be high in the national rankings in 2026, it seems impossible to believe it will be better in 2026 than it was in 2025, which means a backward step, and that’s a logical expectation.
More Challenging Schedule
Ohio State didn’t have too many challenges in 2025. Penn State entered the season as the marquee matchup on the Buckeyes’ schedule, but the Nittany Lions were much worse than expected, which cost James Franklin his job.
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Texas was a good test to start the season, but Ohio State was rarely threatened afterward, even in difficult environments like at Washington and at Michigan. The Buckeyes avoided Indiana, Oregon, USC, and Iowa in the regular season, meaning they only faced Michigan among the Big Ten’s six best teams (Ohio State being one of those).
The Buckeyes should have fared better against the Hoosiers in the conference championship game, but credit to Indiana for making life difficult for Ohio State, and Ryan Day’s team made too many critical errors to win the tight game. Indiana also exposed weaknesses that Miami was able to exploit in the College Football Playoff, which combined with the extended time off with the bye to hinder the Buckeyes’ start to that game.
If Ohio State makes the Big Ten championship and/or College Football Playoff in 2026, the team will be better tested. The Buckeyes visit Texas this season, which will be a tough early challenge. During the regular season, the Buckeyes travel to Iowa, which is never an easy place to win, as well as Indiana and USC.
Ohio State also hosts Illinois, Oregon, and Michigan. It’s not impossible to get through that slate without a loss, but it will be much tougher than what was in front of the Buckeyes in 2025.
By no means am I writing Ohio State off as a contender for a Big Ten title, a berth in the College Football Playoff, or even a national championship. But I’m not as confident as others seem to be that Day will be able to get through the regular season unscathed.
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A step backward in quality can still yield all the team’s goals, depending how other teams fare. I’m not expecting that, and I won’t be shocked if the team misses the CFP at the end of the season, depending on how things go.
