Old wins ... and 2026 Ohio State should be old enough

A look at how Ohio State's projected experience in 2026 stacks up to the 2025 Buckeyes and the best teams of this era

In the Big Ten Championship Game, Indiana was a much more experienced team. (Photo courtesy of Ohio State)

COLUMBUS — Experience guarantees nothing.

Penn State this season was the team most of us targeted as following the model set out by 2023 Michigan and 2024 Ohio State when building what would become national championship teams.

Pay to retain your best players. Use NIL to entice them to stay in school for another year instead of leaving for the NFL Draft. Then win with that homegrown veteran talent.

The Nittany Lions tried. Their Top 30 players in 2025, the guys who played the most snaps on offense and defense, had a combined 24,818 snaps of college football experience entering the season.

That compared favorably enough with the Wolverine and Buckeye models.

In 2023, the 30 players that played the most for Michigan had 26,709 snaps of experience entering the season.

In 2024, Ohio State’s Top 30 players had a ridiculous 33,077 snaps of experience entering the season.

Fifteen of those Buckeyes had played at least 1,000 snaps before the season began. For 2023 Michigan, it was 13, and for 2025 Penn State it was also 13.

But we were looking at it slightly wrong. Yes, experience mattered for this season’s national champs. But it didn’t matter whether you retained your own guys or whether you added veteran transfers.

National champion Indiana certainly is a portal story. Twenty of the Top 30 Hoosiers were transfers, 12 of them added last offseason.

Ohio State and Michigan were retention stories. But I’m done worrying about how a team gets old.