3 expectations for Ohio State’s 2026 football season

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There are few things college football fans (and especially bloggers) enjoy more in the final days before a new season than convincing ourselves that we know exactly what is about to happen. We have spent the offseason obsessing over roster additions, parsing every word uttered during each coach and player press conference, overreacting to every whisper coming out of spring, summer, and preseason workouts, and generally talking ourselves into believing that we alone could divine exactly how the season will play out.

This inevitably leads to everybody with access to a computer spouting their predictions for the season (don’t worry, our annual LGHL predictions omnibus article will be out later this week). So, to kick off the first game week of the season, I decided to go a step or nine further. Rather than simply running through a list of things I think will happen for the Buckeyes this season, this week, I am giving you three things that I guarantee will happen, three things I expect will happen, and three things I am not exactly sure will happen.

Yesterday, I published my guarantees; today are my expectations, and tomorrow will be my questions. So, let’s dive into my expectations for the 2026-27 Ohio State football team.

This will be Ryan Day’s best offense at Ohio State

I already wrote an entire article asking whether this could be Ryan Day’s best offense at Ohio State, so I am not going to rehash all of those arguments (but I do recommend you go and read them in the link above). Instead, I am going to take the premise one step further.

Not only do I think it could be Day’s best offense, but I expect that it will be.

Now, I know that is a pretty dramatic statement given what Day’s offenses have already accomplished in his first seven years at the helm of the Buckeyes. The 2019 Buckeyes averaged 46.9 points per game with Justin Fields and J.K. Dobbins. The 2021 team led the nation in scoring while C.J. Stroud was throwing to Chris Olave, Garrett Wilson, and Jaxon Smith-Njigba.

Those were spectacular offenses, perhaps the most prolific we will ever see in Columbus. However, when I say this year’s group could be Day’s best, I am talking less about raw scoring numbers and more about completeness.

Ohio State already knows that Julian Sayin can play quarterback at an elite level; he was arguably the most accurate and efficient passer in the country last year. The Buckeyes return the best receiver in college football. Running back Bo Jackson rushed for more than 1,000 yards as a freshman, while Isaiah West gives the Buckeyes another explosive option in the backfield. Four offensive linemen return with extensive starting experience.

Then, new offensive coordinator Arthur Smith enters the equation. For all of the prolific offenses that Day has produced, there have been stretches where Ohio State became overly dependent on simply having better players than the defense. In fairness, that’s all it takes in college football, more often than not. However, when it was not enough, the offense has felt far too one-dimensional to compete against the best competition in the country.

Fortunately, I expect Smith to be able to address many of those issues. His physical running game, play-action concepts, multiple formations, tight ends, and pre-snap movement should complement what Day already does well, rather than attempt to replace it. This will still be the Ohio State offense that has the ability to go into Death Star Mode, but — like it did when Chip Kelly called the plays — I believe that it will have the ability to do more things exceptionally well than it has in many other seasons.

It should be able to run inside, attack the perimeter, throw vertically, use play action, spread defenses, condense formations, and punish whatever personnel an opponent chooses to play. Perhaps it won’t average the 45-plus points of Day’s most statistically explosive teams — especially considering the incredibly difficult schedule the Bucks will face this fall. But it might be the offense with the fewest obvious weaknesses and the most ways to punish opponents.

In a season where Ohio State is going to play a handful of defenses good enough to take away anybody’s first option, that could end up mattering a lot more than another 10 points or 150 yards per game.

The secondary will remain BIA

Ohio State lost Caleb Downs, Davison Igbinosun, and Lorenzo Styles Jr. from last year’s starting secondary, and ordinarily losing that much talent would make me pretty nervous, and in fairness, that’s the main reason why this is in today’s expectations and not yesterday’s guarantees.

Downs was the best defensive player in college football, while Igbinosun and Styles were experienced pieces of a defense that allowed just 129.7 passing yards per game and seven passing touchdowns all season.

Each is a substantial departure individually, and collectively it could be cause for serious concern. And yet, not only do I not expect Ohio State’s secondary to take much of a step backward, I believe it will continue to carry the mantle of the Best In America.

Devin Sanchez and Jermaine Mathews Jr. should give the Buckeyes one of the best starting cornerback combinations in the country, while the depth behind them might be even more impressive than originally expected.

Georgia transfer Dominick Kelly has pushed for first-team reps, former Alabama corner Cam Calhoun brings additional experience, and Earl Little Jr. arrived from Florida State as the most ready-to-play addition on the entire roster.

Then there is true freshman Jay Timmons. The former five-star prospect has reportedly been so impressive during camp that he has positioned himself to play immediately at nickel, potentially allowing Little to settle into a more traditional safety role. Terry Moore transferred from Duke with legitimate starter expectations, yet could wind up being a high-level rotational player because of the depth ahead of him.

Considering all that was lost in the offseason — to the draft and the portal — that is a very good problem to have. Nobody on this roster is going to be Caleb Downs, because practically nobody in college football is Caleb Downs. But BIA has never been about one player.

The entire premise of “Best in America” is that Ohio State should continually replace elite defensive backs with more elite defensive backs. Guys leave for the NFL, younger players step in, and the standard remains the same as it has always been.

Starting safety and newly minted captain Jaylen McClain, Sanchez, Mathews, Little, Timmons, Kelly, Moore, and Calhoun give defensive coordinator Matt Patricia an insane number of combinations to work with. There will inevitably be growing pains as new players settle into larger roles. But when Ohio State faces Texas, Oregon, USC, or Michigan, I do not expect to spend much time wondering whether the Buckeyes can cover people. BIA should remain BIA.

The offensive line will be the backbone of the offense

If you have read me for any length of time, you know that I have not exactly been an unquestioning cheerleader for Ohio State’s offensive line in recent years. There have been too many recruiting misses, too many developmental questions, and too many games against elite defensive fronts where the Buckeyes struggled to establish the kind of physical dominance that a championship team should be able to count on.

So when I say that I expect the offensive line to become the backbone of Ohio State’s offense this season, it is not because I suddenly decided to ignore all of that history; I just think everything has finally lined up.

Ohio State returns Carson Hinzman, Luke Montgomery, Austin Siereveld, and Phillip Daniels, all of whom enter the year with more than 1,000 career offensive snaps. Hinzman alone has played more than 2,000.

Then Ian Moore’s emergence at left tackle appears to have allowed Siereveld to move back inside to guard, creating a projected line of Moore, Montgomery, Hinzman, Siereveld, and Daniels that looks far more settled than it did entering camp.

There also appears to be legitimate depth behind that group, which is something that has not always been the case when injuries piled up in recent years. That experience becomes even more important with Arthur Smith now running the offense.

Whatever else Smith does schematically, his teams have traditionally been built around physicality. Ohio State is obviously not suddenly going to stop throwing the football to Jeremiah Smith (check out my guarantees from yesterday), but I do expect this o-line to be asked to dictate games more frequently.

If defenses keep two safeties high to account for OSU’s incredibly talented receiving corps, then the Buckeyes should be able to hand the ball to Bo Jackson or Isaiah West and take advantage of the lighter boxes. If defenses crowd the line of scrimmage, the Buckeyes need to give Sayin enough time to make them regret it. And when Ohio State needs two yards late in the fourth quarter, I do not want Ryan Day taking 30 of the 35 seconds on the play clock to get the call in because he’s not sure whether the line can create enough of a push to pick up the first down.

The offensive line does not need to be perfect. It just needs to become reliable enough that Day and Smith never have to build a game plan around protecting it. If that happens, the guys up front might quietly be the most important part of the best offense in the country.

Check back tomorrow as I will run through three things that I expect to happen for the Buckeyes in the 2026-27 season, but I am not confident enough to fully guarantee. The expectations dive into Ryan Day’s offense, the Buckeyes’ secondary, and the importance of the offensive line.

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