The 9-3 debate: Just how tough is Ohio State's 2026 football schedule?

Some more data is out on the Buckeyes' 12 foes this season.

Ohio State will face three teams expected to win at least nine games in 2026. (Photo courtesy of Ohio State)

COLUMBUS — How tough is Ohio State’s 2026 football schedule going to be?

Full strength of schedule rankings aren’t out yet, but as other data points do become available, we get a clearer picture of what the Buckeyes will be facing.

For instance, FanDuel over-under win totals were released recently.

Nine of the 68 power conference teams have totals of 9.5 wins or higher for the 12-game regular season. Ohio State is one of those nine, and the Buckeyes play three of the others in Texas, Indiana and Oregon.

There are 31 teams with win totals of 7.5 or higher. The Buckeyes play seven of those other 30: Texas, Indiana, Oregon, Michigan, USC, Illinois and Iowa.

There are 23 teams with win totals of 5.5 or lower, including seven in the Big Ten. The Buckeyes play two of them: Northwestern and Maryland.

So of the 30 other teams expected to win the most, Ohio State plays 23 percent of them.

Of the 23 teams expected to win the least, Ohio State plays 9 percent of them.

In their 12 games, the Buckeyes play two MAC teams, eight power conference teams expected to have winning records and two expected to have losing records.

Last year, the Buckeyes played two lower-level teams, five teams that finished with regular-season winning records, one that finished 6-6, and four with losing records.

ESPN also released its returning production rankings on Monday. Of the 138 teams in FBS, Ohio State is No. 31. The Buckeyes are No. 8 in offensive returning production (Julian Sayin, Jeremiah Smith, Bo Jackson, four starting offensive linemen) and No. 78 in defensive returning production (losing seven defensive starters will do that.)

For a Tier 1 program sending at least four first-rounders to the NFL Draft, No. 31 is actually pretty good.

But six Ohio State opponents rank higher in returning production:

• No. 2 Maryland

• No. 3 Nebraska

• No. 6 Texas

• No. 11 Oregon

• No. 13 USC

• No. 20 Michigan

Be aware that the Longhorns, Ducks, Trojans and Wolverines have a good number of their best guys back.

Throw in that Texas and Indiana have Top 10 transfer classes (when you only count additions), and that USC and Oregon had the Top 2 recruiting classes in the nation and have a chance for a couple freshmen to help them, and you can see the Buckeyes’ road won’t be easy.

Here’s a quick chart with the OSU opponents and their win totals, returning production ranking, transfer class ranking and recruiting class ranking.

Those numbers were at the center of our opening debate on Around the Shoe on Monday. Ari Wasserman and Matt Fortuna joined me and Bill to discuss what we think of that 9.5 win total for the Buckeyes. It’s a number we will talk about a lot over the next five months.

As we’ve mentioned before, since college football expanded to a 12-game regular season in 2006, the Buckeyes have only lost as many as three games once, in suspension-heavy 2011. Never in a normal season have the Buckeyes gone 9-3.

That’s worth remembering. But the strength of this schedule is worth acknowledging.

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