Three Reasons Ohio State Will Repeat As National Champions in 2015

By Tim Shoemaker on July 22, 2015 at 10:10 am
Urban Meyer celebrated a national title last year
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In the eyes of many, Ohio State’s national championship in 2014 came a year ahead of schedule. The Buckeyes won it all thanks in large part to a group of young players, more specifically the ‘super sophomores’ in the 2013 recruiting class.

Guys like Joey Bosa, Ezekiel Elliott, J.T. Barrett, Vonn Bell, Jalin Marshall and Darron Lee, among others, contributed to Ohio State’s run to the title. There are other young players, too, of course, and the majority of those guys were seeing their first year of serious playing time on the collegiate level.

And because of that youth, Ohio State is loaded once again in 2015 and it’s the main reason why the Buckeyes are the preseason favorites to take home a national title.

Ohio State will either win the national championship in 2015 or it will not. There will be plenty of reasons why either will happen, but we’ve tried to narrow each scenario down to the top three. We’ll explore why the Buckeyes won’t take home a national title in 2015 later in the week, but for right now let’s take a closer look at three reasons why Ohio State will again be crowned champions of the College Football Playoff this season.

OHIO STATE IS LOADED

We already addressed a few of the big-name players above, but this is single-handedly the most important factor: Ohio State is absolutely loaded with talent in 2015. And more often than not, that matters quite a bit.

The Buckeyes return 15 starters from last year’s title team — eight on offense and seven on defense. Most of those players who are returning are projected NFL Draft picks, too. In fact, CBS Sports draft analyst Dane Brugler said the Buckeyes could challenge the record for players drafted by one team in 2015.

Ohio State has big-time playmakers at nearly every position on the field and will have a talent advantage in every game that it plays. In most games, that talent gap will be significant.

A MANAGEABLE SCHEDULE

Ohio State’s schedule isn’t exactly murderer’s row. The Buckeyes have one challenge in the non-conference slate — the season-opener at Virginia Tech — and one marquee Big Ten game against Michigan State.

That game against the Spartans takes place at Ohio Stadium, though, as do contests with Penn State and Minnesota — two teams which played the Buckeyes relatively tough last season. The season finale at Michigan could also be tricky because, well, it’s Michigan and it will be the first matchup between Urban Meyer and Jim Harbaugh.

Overall, though, Ohio State’s schedule is very manageable and should the Buckeyes pull out a win in Week 1 against the Hokies, they should coast into the Nov. 21 matchup with Michigan State.

URBAN MEYER

There are questions about complacency for Ohio State and repeating as national champion is one of the hardest things to do, but if there’s one guy who can keep the Buckeyes focused on the task at hand it is Meyer.

He’s lost only three games in his three seasons in Columbus and certainly doesn’t show any signs of slowing down anytime soon. Meyer is a master motivator and, even though he hasn’t had a successful repeat attempt yet, he has learned all of the challenges that come with attempting to go back-to-back based on his two previous tries at Florida.

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