Big Ten Announces Revised 2021 Ohio State Football Schedule

The Buckeyes opponents for next season remain the same, but the locations and dates in many instances have been altered.

Author:
Brendan Gulick
Updated:
Feb 5, 2021 2:47 PM EST

The Ohio State Buckeyes and the rest of the Big Ten found out what their new 2021 schedule would look like on Friday afternoon. And while the opponents are exactly the same as they were on the original 2021 schedule that was finalized several years ago, the locations and dates of most opponents have moved.

The Buckeyes still open the season with Minnesota (although that game has now been moved to a Thursday night) and they will still close the schedule with their traditional rivalry game against Michigan.

The changes for the Buckeyes are fairly minimal in that they are still playing against the same teams, but substantial in that the order of games is now quite different.

The reason for having to alter the 2021 schedule? The league needed to make adjustments because of tweaking the 2020 schedule two separate times, including truncating it, in order to play football during the pandemic. They have a number of rules and regulations that had to be followed last year, including how many consecutive weeks a team can play on the road and making sure teams don't go too long without playing cross-divisional opponents.

Here is the new Ohio State schedule for 2021, with a comparison to the previous schedule.

2021 Schedule (former schedule)

Sept. 2 – at Minnesota
Sept. 11 – Oregon
Sept. 18 – Tulsa
Sept. 25 – Akron
Oct. 2 – at Rutgers (at Nebraska)
Oct. 9 – Maryland (Purdue)
Oct. 16 – Off (Off)
Oct. 23 – at Indiana (at Rutgers)
Oct. 30 – Penn State (Michigan State)
Nov. 6 – at Nebraska (at Indiana)
Nov. 13 – Purdue (Maryland)
Nov. 20 – Michigan State (Penn State)
Nov. 27 – at Michigan
Dec. 4 – Big Ten Championship Game