Ohio State Has 'Toughest Schedule Draw' Of Big Ten East's Best

The Ohio State Buckeyes will obviously play two tough Big Ten East opponents in Michigan and Penn State in addition to the West Division favorite in Wisconsin in 2023.

Adam Cairns-USA TODAY Sports

As BuckeyesNow continues our weekly preview series of each Ohio State opponent in 2023, it's becoming more and more clear that it's not a cake walk in the Big Ten East or to a conference championship.

The Buckeyes open the year with a road conference game and have nonconference matchups against Western Kentucky and Notre Dame before embarking on eight-consecutive Big Ten games, and half of them are not exactly cake walks. CBS Sports and 247Sports' Josh Pate said on "Late Kick with Josh Pate" that Ohio State has a "very interesting" list of 2023 opponents.

"They play three teams within the top 15 of the national championship odds this year," Pate said. "They play at Notre Dame, they play Penn State and they play at Michigan, so not only do they play three of the top 15, two of the three are on the road. They play five teams of win totals of eight or more, and that doesn't include Western Kentucky who also has a win total of eight or more.

"They travel to Wisconsin right after the Penn State game. They probably got the worst draw. Out of that big three in the East, they probably got the toughest schedule draw of any team up there."

Ohio State's four matchups that they're going to be really tested are against the Fighting Irish, Nittany Lions, Badgers and Wolverines. That's not to mention the scrappy Big Ten teams Ohio State plays in Maryland and Minnesota, which have projected regular-season win totals of seven and 6.5, respectively, according to DraftKings Sportsbook. However, against the Terrapins and Golden Gophers, the Buckeyes will have home field advantage.

There's no such thing as guarantees in college football — look at Appalachian State against Michigan in 2007 and Texas A&M last season — but if you were to Sharpie in victories next to an opponent, the four real definitive, leave-by-halftime wins for Ohio State next season will likely come against Indiana, Youngstown State, Rutgers and Michigan State.

"It's going to be a tendency of a lot of people to look at that schedule and say, 'Oh, that's soft.' That's not a soft schedule," Pate said. "It's not like murderer's row. It's not like vintage Arkansas schedules of years past, but no, that's not an easy stretch."

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