As a lifelong follower of college football and someone who has spent more hours than I care to admit analyzing schedules, playbooks, and roster changes, I find the annual release of the Ohio State Buckeyes football schedule to be a pivotal moment. It’s not just a list of dates and opponents; it’s a narrative blueprint for the entire season, a story waiting to be written in the mud, grass, and under the bright lights of iconic stadiums. This year’s slate is no different, presenting a path fraught with both monumental challenges and opportunities for statement wins. Crafting a successful season is a lot like a perfectly executed volleyball play, if you’ll allow me a brief detour into another sport I follow closely. I recall watching a phenomenal performance where a player like Arisu Ishikawa notched a triple-double—11 points, 13 digs, 16 receptions—a stat line that signifies dominance in every facet of the game. For a football team, the schedule is the tournament. To win it all, you need that same comprehensive excellence: offensive fireworks, defensive stalwartness, and special teams reliability, applied consistently across a grueling twelve-game gauntlet. That’s the lens through which I view this 2024 Ohio State schedule.
The non-conference slate sets the tone, and this year it’s no mere formality. The opener against Southern Miss is a chance to shake off the rust, but the real early-season litmus test comes in Week 2 with the visit from Western Michigan. While they’re a MAC team, they’re often pesky, and it’s a game where the Buckeyes’ depth and discipline will be tested before the big one. For me, the entire early narrative hinges on September 14th: the colossal home showdown against the Marshall Thundering Herd. This isn’t your typical Group of Five matchup; Marshall brings a physical brand of football and a fanbase that travels. A convincing win here, by say, 17 points or more, would send a powerful message about this team’s focus and potency right out of the gate. A sluggish performance, even in a win, would raise immediate questions. Following that, the final non-conference game is a tricky trip to face a well-coached UConn team on the road. It’s a classic “trap game” scenario, nestled between the Marshall hype and the start of Big Ten play. I’ve seen too many highly-ranked teams stumble in these environments. Ryan Day’s ability to have his squad locked in for a 1:00 PM kickoff in a less-than-hostile but still unfamiliar stadium will tell us a lot about the leadership in the locker room.
Then, we dive into the heart of the matter: the Big Ten schedule, now featuring the added giants from the West Coast. The conference opener at home against Iowa is a brutal welcome. Kirk Ferentz’s teams are always defensively sound, and they grind games into a pulp. I personally find these matchups agonizing to watch but utterly vital for championship aspirations. You have to win the ugly ones. After what should be a breather against Indiana, the season’s defining stretch arrives. The back-to-back in late October is, in my opinion, what will make or break the playoff hopes. Going on the road to face Oregon in Eugene will be one of the most hostile environments any Buckeye team has faced in a decade. The Ducks, with their high-flying offense, will be a mirror image of Ohio State in many ways, and the sheer travel demands are a new variable in this expanded league. Then, just seven days later, you have to host Penn State in the Shoe. That’s an emotional and physical gauntlet unlike any other on the schedule. I believe splitting those two games might be acceptable for the playoff committee, but to truly control your destiny, you almost need to win both. It’s a Herculean task. The reward? A slightly more manageable November, with games against Purdue, Northwestern, and the regular-season finale in Ann Arbor against that team up north. I don’t need to elaborate on the importance of The Game. It’s the season, every season. But this year, with the expanded playoff, its implications might be more about seeding than outright elimination, which is a strange new world to consider.
So, what’s the final calculus? Looking at this schedule, I see a minimum of four, and arguably five or six, games that could go either way on any given Saturday. The key matchups—Marshall, Oregon, Penn State, and Michigan—are the pillars. To me, the Oregon game is the most fascinating. It’s a new rivalry, a cross-country trip, and a stylistic clash that will be a national spectacle. If the Buckeyes can emerge from that two-week stretch with a 2-0 record, they’ll be in the driver’s seat for the conference and the top playoff seed. But it requires that triple-double level of performance I mentioned earlier. The offense, with its new quarterback (whoever that may be), needs to put up points against elite defenses. The defense, which has been stellar, needs to create turnovers in critical moments. And the special teams unit cannot afford a single catastrophic error. It’s about complete team excellence, week after week. My personal prediction, biased as a hopeful fan, is an 11-1 regular season, with that lone loss being a heartbreaker in one of those marquee games. But the beauty of this schedule is its difficulty; even an 11-1 Buckeye team with wins over several top-15 opponents would be a lock for the playoff. The path is clear, but it’s a narrow, treacherous mountain trail, not a smooth highway. Buckle up, because this schedule promises a season-long drama worthy of the Buckeye legacy.
