Ohio State Football fills final opening for 2023 season

The Ohio State football program has games scheduled for several years. In fact, they have some of their games scheduled 10 years from now. But they didn’t have their entire schedule for the 2023 season finished yet. That is until earlier today.

The Buckeyes will play an FCS opponent for the first time in a decade when they take on in-state foe Youngstown State. Ohio State will pay them to come to the Shoe and be their opening foe. The Ohio State football program will take them on September 9th in the first week of the season.

This is an interesting choice of opponent. Most Big Ten teams try to stay away from scheduling FCS teams to help their strength of schedule. The Buckeyes must think that traveling to Notre Dame later in that season is good enough to pull up their non-conference strength of schedule.

Ohio State hasn’t played Youngstown State since 2008. In that game, Beanie Wells hurt his leg and ended up missing three games that season. The Penguins got on the schedule for next year because San Jose State dropped out of their agreement with the Buckeyes.

A game like this will help the Buckeyes get warmed up to play a good opponent like the FIghting Irish later in September. This is a game where a lot of backups should see some time as well. We know that Ohio State loves to schedule in-state opponents and help them out financially.

The Buckeyes will take on Youngstown State and Western Kentucky before traveling to South Bend to take on Notre Dame next year. The Big Ten schedule has not been released for the 2023 season yet. It, of course, will be difficult like it always is.