Ohio State’s 2026 schedule already looks like the kind that can chew up a season, and Bucknuts readers didn’t hesitate when asked to sort through the Buckeyes’ biggest tests.
The clear runaway pick was the Sept. 12 trip to Texas. Of the 33 posters who responded, 22 put that game at No. 1 on their list of Ohio State’s toughest matchups. Oregon was the only other opponent to draw significant first-place support, landing seven top votes, while Indiana and Michigan each picked up two.
That kind of split says plenty about how loaded the slate looks. Ohio State is coming off a 12-2 season in 2025 and enters 2026 as the preseason No. 1 team in both the Associated Press media poll and the coaches poll. The Buckeyes are also one of eight Big Ten teams in the AP preseason top 25, and their schedule is stacked with ranked opponents from start to finish.
After Ohio State, the Big Ten’s highest-ranked teams in the AP preseason poll are Oregon at No. 2, Indiana at No.
6, USC at No. 14, Michigan at No.
16, Washington at No. 17, Penn State at No. 18 and Iowa at No.
- The Buckeyes are set to face five of those teams - Oregon and Michigan at home, and Indiana, USC and Iowa on the road.
That doesn’t even include the nonconference trip to Texas, where the Longhorns are preseason No. 5.
Put it all together, and Ohio State could see six ranked opponents in the regular season. The program has only matched or exceeded that kind of load a handful of times: seven ranked foes in 1995, 1999 and 2003, and six in 2005.
Since then, the regular-season total has usually sat somewhere between three and five, including three ranked opponents in each of the last four regular seasons from 2022 through 2025, not counting the Indiana loss in the 2025 Big Ten championship game.
Ohio State’s 2024 national championship team also had to navigate a heavy run, facing three ranked regular-season opponents - all in the top 10 - before taking on four more top-10 teams on the way to the CFB Playoff title.
Bucknuts readers also spread their rankings around the rest of the schedule. Texas drew the most first-place votes by far, but there was one ballot that placed the Longhorns fifth on the list of toughest games. Michigan, meanwhile, showed up everywhere from the top spot all the way down to eighth.
For the purposes of the vote, Ohio State’s two nonconference games against Ball State and Kent State, along with Big Ten home games against Maryland and Northwestern, were set aside. The remaining eight games were the ones readers ranked from easiest to toughest.
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