Ohio State Football: Going independent is not an option for Ohio State

As cries to leave the Big Ten get louder amid the Kevin Warren debacle we need to maintain perspective on how the Big Ten benefits the Ohio State Buckeyes.

The Big Ten gets more from Ohio State than Ohio State gets from the Big Ten.

That has been a common phrase spoken by many Buckeye fans who are furious at Kevin Warren’s mishandling of the current situation. The Big Ten overstepped and made a huge mistake and is now unwilling to fix it.

But the answer is not for the Buckeyes to permanently leave the Big Ten.

If you look at the situation strictly by money, yes Ohio State could make significantly more by going independent.

But scheduling and maintaining a competitive advantage would get harder.

Think about Notre Dame, who is the closest to what Ohio State would be if they went independent. They have classic rivalry games with USC, Stanford, Michigan, and Navy (add in potentially Boston College) and there are plenty of teams that want to see their team take on the Fighting Irish each Year.

Ohio State would realistically have Michigan and Penn State. No other team has as close pageantry or rivalry with the Buckeyes.

Notre Dame also plays primarily an ACC schedule.

If Ohio State left the Big Ten, who would fill in the remainder of our games?

Big schools are not going to play us late in the season when a bad loss could potentially hurt their championship run and they are trying to win their conference.

So you have three or four quality games, throw in Michigan and Penn State, but then the rest of teams that will schedule Ohio State would be teams that have no chance of winning their conference and just want the money.

Ohio State does not have enough ties to other conferences that it makes sense to pseudo join like Notre Dame. The quality of the schedule drops. Maybe not in actual value if you can get three or four of the biggest games at the beginning, but in perception when the biggest wins are all from the start of the season and the college football playoff committee is trying to determine who belongs in the playoffs.

Without a championship game, the Buckeyes would have to go undefeated each year to even have a chance since they will lose out on that deciding factor.

Recruits would lose the chance of playing for a conference championship game which could hurt recruiting as well. I get the argument that “we are Ohio State” but these kids have a lot of great schools they are deciding between and every little thing counts.

In the end, as much as the Big Ten has been terrible this year, Ohio State does not have a permanent option outside the conference. We are stuck.