Ohio State Football fans will know immediately if the team is good

The Ohio State football program starts every year with the same expectations. Those expectations are for them to win the Big Ten, play in the College Football Playoff, and contend for a national championship. We are going to know really quickly whether or not those things are in the cards this season.

That’s because the Buckeyes play Notre Dame right out of the gate. The Fighting Irish will be a top-10 preseason team and a good gauge of how talented this Ohio State football team is. A loss won’t doom the Buckeyes, but how they play will tell us a lot.

If they play like they did against Oregon last year, we’ll know immediately that this team can’t win a national title. Playing that softly against a team that they are more talented than will tell us that this team hasn’t fixed their core issue of not being tough enough.

If they come out and just beatdown Notre Dame, then that’s a different story. Again, that’s not the be-all-end-all. It will give us a great idea of how good this team really is if they come out and blow out a really good Irish squad. That’s when Buckeye fans can get really excited.

A close loss would also tell us something. It would tell us that the team isn’t quite good enough yet to contend, but they still have time to fix that. A close loss would not be the end of the world for this team. Obviously, a win would be better though.

We’ll see how they play in that opener on the first weekend of September. I certainly can’t wait for it!