Criticism of the Ohio State football schedule is unwarranted

Last week, it was Danny Kanell. This week, it’s ESPN’s shill for the SEC, Paul “The Mouth for the South” Finebaum criticizing the Ohio State team's non-conference schedule. Their bad mouthing of the Buckeyes’ slate is completely unwarranted.

Ok, so Akron, Western Michigan, and Marshall is not exactly murderer’s row. But neither is UT Martin, Ball State, and UAB. Nor is East Carolina, UNLV, and Bowling Green. Those were the non-conference schedules for Georgia and Michigan respectively last year.

How about the trio of Arkansas State, SMU, and Tulsa that Oklahoma took on in 2023? There’s a schedule that I’m sure kept Sooner fans up at night. If you look at any college football season, you will see non-conference schedules like this among the upper-tier teams.  

The biggest reason I feel bashing the Buckeyes’ non-conference schedule this year is unwarranted is because it is an anomaly. They don’t make a habit of doing this like other schools. In 2022 and 2023, Ohio State played a home-and-home series with Notre Dame.

They were supposed to take on Oregon in 2020 and 2021, but one of those meetings was scuttled because of the pandemic. They traveled to Dallas in 2018 to play TCU and also took on Oregon State that season. In 2016 and 2017, they played Oklahoma in a home-and-home series.

You can be critical of the 2019 schedule, but Cincinnati won 11 games, including blasting Boston College, from the ACC, in their bowl game. In seven of the last nine seasons, Ohio State has scheduled a marquee opponent and they have not been afraid to go on the road to play them.

It's more of the same when you look at future Buckeye schedules. Next season begins a home-and-home with Texas. They’ll do the same with Alabama in 2027 and 2028. They don’t have a big-named opponent for 2029 just yet, but in 2030 they begin a home-and-home with Georgia.  

When you consider past and future, there is nothing wrong with Ohio State’s scheduling practices and criticism of this year’s schedule is unwarranted. Kanell, a former Florida State quarterback, and Finebaum, a former Alabama beat writer, rarely have anything good to say about football played above the Mason-Dixon Line.

Criticizing the Buckeyes is simply a way to stir up a very large fan base in order to get clicks.