Ohio State football faces a tougher road with its 2026 opponents

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Jan 21, 2026 - 05:30
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Ohio State football faces a tougher road with its 2026 opponents

The Ohio State Buckeyes saw the 2025 season end disappointingly, falling in both the Big Ten Championship and the CFP quarterfinal to Indiana and Miami. They went unbeaten in the regular season but came up short against two elite teams late in the year. As the program turns the page to 2026, the road ahead looks far more demanding than what they faced a season ago.

On3 released its “2026 Way Too Early College Football Top 25” on Monday, and while Ohio State checked in at No. 1, a significant portion of its 2026 opponents landed on the list as well. Based on the current schedule and those early rankings, the Buckeyes would be set to play at No. 3 Texas, at No. 5 Indiana, No. 6 Oregon, No. 12 Michigan, at No. 19 USC, and at No. 21 Iowa. Rankings will obviously shift and change as the season approaches, but still, that is a brutal slate. Ohio State will be tested repeatedly, with marquee matchups both inside The Shoe and on the road in some of the most hostile environments in the country.

The Buckeyes are set to bring back a strong amount of offensive production at key spots, but the defense remains a bit more of an unknown heading into 2026. Even so, the season shapes up to be one of the more intriguing in recent memory, with high-level tests scattered all across the schedule. As 2025 showed, multiple losses no longer spell the end of a CFP appearance. If Ohio State can take care of business in four or five of those games against projected top 25 teams, the Buckeyes should still be firmly in the CFP picture and positioned to make a deep run.

This article originally appeared on Buckeyes Wire: Ohio State football looking at a challenging 2026 slate

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