Ohio State football’s strength of schedule better than you think

I’ve heard a lot of people say that the Ohio State football team hasn’t played a strong schedule so far this season. They’ve played six games this season and none of those teams are currently ranked in the top 25. That’s not how the year started though.

The Buckeyes played Notre Dame when they were ranked 5th in the country. Wisconsin was a preseason top-25 team as well. As it turns out, neither of those teams is any good. Still, their strength of schedule is better than some people think that it is.

Ohio State’s strength of schedule based on teams they have already played is 71st in the country. That doesn’t seem very good until you look at the rest of the teams in the top 10 in the polls. Of those top 10 teams, only three other teams have an SOS above 80.

The Ohio State football team’s SOS is better than six other top-ten teams.

Alabama is the highest with their SOS of teams played sitting at 24th. Tennessee, who plays Alabama this week, is sitting at 64th. Georgia is the only other team ahead of Ohio State, and they are just one spot ahead of the Buckeyes at 70th. Clemson is next at 84th.

Some of the other top-ten teams have just terrible schedules they’ve played so far. Penn State sits at 90th in the country, although they play Michigan this week. Speaking of Michigan, their SOS so far sits at a paltry 95th. Oklahoma State is 88th, USC is 99th, and Ole Miss is the worst of them all sitting at 111th.

As you can see, the Buckeyes haven’t done that badly in terms of opponents played so far compared to the other top teams in the country. Their schedule greatly improves too, with the rest of their SOS sitting at 33rd. We’ll learn just how good they are soon enough.

I expect the Ohio State Buckeyes to keep winning in the same fashion that they’ve been doing all year long, no matter who they face on the other side.