The difficulty of Ohio State’s 2025 regular-season schedule can be broken down into four tiers.
Three games should be easy blowout victories for the Buckeyes unless they badly underperform. Four other games look like they should be comfortable wins for Ohio State, too, though they won’t necessarily be cakewalks. Three games stand out above the rest as the three biggest tests that could make or break Ohio State’s season, but a pair of road games in the first half of the season should also be circled as challenges the Buckeyes can’t overlook.
In order to assess the projected difficulty of Ohio State’s 12 regular-season games, I asked Eleven Warriors staffers to rank the 12 games on the schedule from the one they’re most confident the Buckeyes will win to the one they’re most concerned the Buckeyes could lose. From there, I averaged out their rankings – nine staffers voted in total – to rank each game in order from easiest to most difficult, then grouped them into tiers based on gaps in the voting.
Tier 1: Easy Wins
1. Grambling State (Sept. 6, Home)
Average Ranking: 1
High Rank: 1
Low Rank: 1
2. Ohio (Sept. 13, Home)
Average Ranking: 2.2
High Rank: 2
Low Rank: 3
3. Purdue (Nov. 8, Away)
Average Ranking: 2.8
High Rank: 2
Low Rank: 3
Our entire staff agreed that the second game of the season against Grambling State will be Ohio State’s easiest win of the year. It should be; Grambling is an FCS team and not even a good one, going just 5-7 last year.
The staff also unanimously agreed that Ohio State’s next two easiest games, in one order or the other, will be its non-conference finale against the Ohio Bobcats and its November road game at Purdue. While beating a MAC team should theoretically be easier than fending off a conference foe, Ohio could very well be a better team this season than Purdue, which is projected to be the Big Ten’s worst team for the second straight year after going 1-11 last season.
Tier 2: Should Be Comfortable Wins
4. Rutgers (Nov. 22, Home)
Average Ranking: 4.4
High Rank: 4
Low Rank: 5
5. UCLA (Nov. 15, Home)
Average Ranking: 5
High Rank: 4
Low Rank: 7
6. Minnesota (Oct. 4, Home)
Average Ranking: 5.9
High Rank: 4
Low Rank: 7
7. Wisconsin (Oct. 18, Away)
Average Ranking: 6.7
High Rank: 6
Low Rank: 7
Ohio State will be a heavy favorite to win three of its four Big Ten home games, as the Buckeyes’ home contests against Rutgers, UCLA and Minnesota all rank in the upper half of games we’re most confident the Buckeyes will win this season.
Unsurprisingly, Rutgers ranked in the top five on everyone’s ballot as the Buckeyes have won all 10 of their games against the Scarlet Knights (all since 2014) by at least three scores. Greg Schiano has turned Rutgers into a respectable program rather than the punching bag it was during its early Big Ten years, but the Scarlet Knights still don’t have the horsepower to beat the conference’s elite teams.
I put UCLA seventh on my ballot since the Bruins at least have a dynamic quarterback now in Nico Iamaleava, but considering his struggles with a better team around him in a cold Ohio Stadium last December, I can see why most of our staff ranked the Bruins’ cross-country November trip to the Shoe as one of their five most confident wins of the season.
Minnesota has a better all-around team than Rutgers and UCLA, albeit with an unproven quarterback (Drake Lindsey), but there’s still a clear difference in talent between the Golden Gophers and the Buckeyes, who have beaten Minnesota 13 straight times dating back to 2001.
The difficulty could turn up a bit when Ohio State travels to Wisconsin to play the Badgers at Camp Randall Stadium, a notoriously tough road environment. That said, Ohio State has won 10 straight games against Wisconsin, which is projected to be a bottom-half team in the Big Ten this year. Given that, no one staff ranked the Wisconsin trip among Ohio State’s five toughest games, though no one ranked it among the Buckeyes’ five easiest wins either.
Tier 3: Challenging Road Tests
8. Washington (Sept. 27, Away)
Average Ranking: 8.4
High Rank: 8
Low Rank: 9
9. Illinois (Oct. 11, Away)
Average Ranking: 8.7
High Rank: 8
Low Rank: 10
Our staff unanimously agreed that Ohio State’s first two road trips of the season rank among the Buckeyes’ five toughest games of the year, with all but one staffer ranking Illinois and Washington as the fourth- and fifth-toughest opponents of the season. A slight majority of staffers are more confident Ohio State will beat Washington than Illinois, but both games have the potential to present real challenges.
Washington could have one of the Big Ten’s best offenses this season with quarterback Demond Williams Jr., running back Jonah Coleman and wide receiver Denzel Boston all ranking among the conference’s top players at their positions. The Huskies’ defense should also be improved this season. Husky Stadium is one of college football’s loudest stadiums, and Ohio State lost to Oregon in its West Coast road trip last season.
Washington’s offensive weapons, led by wide receiver Denzel Boston, make Ohio State’s trip to Husky Stadium a potentially dangerous game. (Photo: Steven Bisig – Imagn Images)
Illinois is a popular College Football Playoff pick as the Illini return 16 starters from a team that went 10-3 last season. If the Fighting Illini can beat Indiana on the road in September, there’s a good chance they’ll be 6-0 when they host the Buckeyes in the first Illibuck game since 2017. This matchup has some 2024 Indiana vibes – that being a game where Ohio State takes offense to game-week upset predictions and exerts its talent advantage in a decisive win – but the trip to Champaign could be a dangerous one if the Buckeyes don’t bring their A-game.
Tier 4: The Big Three
10. Penn State (Nov. 1, Home)
Average Ranking: 10.6
High Rank: 10
Low Rank: 11
11. Michigan (Nov. 29, Away)
Average Ranking: 11
High Rank: 9
Low Rank: 12
12. Texas (Aug. 30, Home)
Average Ranking: 11.3
High Rank: 10
Low Rank: 12
Ohio State’s regular-season schedule is headlined by games against the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the preseason AP poll and a team that’s beaten the Buckeyes four years in a row.
Even though Penn State is a popular pick to make the national championship game among our staff, none of us chose the Nittany Lions as the most likely team to beat Ohio State during the regular season. Ohio State has won eight straight games against the Nittany Lions, and getting them at home will only help the Buckeyes’ chances of extending that winning streak in the Jim Knowles Revenge Game.
Five of nine staffers picked The Game as the game they’re least confident Ohio State will win, undoubtedly scarred by the Buckeyes’ results against Michigan over the past four years. The Wolverines aren’t projected to be as good as the Nittany Lions or Longhorns, but they are expected to be better – at least on offense – than they were when they beat Ohio State in Columbus last year. Winning the national championship last season should empower Ryan Day and his team to coach and play more confidently against their rival than they have in recent years, but it’s still the biggest roadblock the Buckeyes must overcome, and they’ll have to do it in Ann Arbor.
Averaging out the staff’s ballots, however, Texas slightly edged out Michigan as the toughest game on Ohio State’s 2025 schedule. The Longhorns will enter the season opener as the nation’s top-ranked team, presenting a massive test right out of the gates for an Ohio State team that has just eight returning starters from last year’s national championship run. As such, all but one member of our voting panel picked the Texas game as one of Ohio State’s two most likely losses of the season, factoring in the likelihood that the Buckeyes will be a better team later in the season than they will be out of the gates with a first-time starting quarterback.
For an in-depth breakdown of all 12 games on Ohio State’s regular-season schedule, check out Chase Brown’s breakdowns on the first six games of the season and the second six games of the season.
