After 11 Games of Dominance, Ohio State’s Real Tests Begin Now

Ohio State has been the most dominant team in college football through its first 11 games. Now it’s time to find out how good the Buckeyes really are.

The first 11 games of Ohio State’s season have been filled with easy victories over inferior opponents. Since a season-opening 14-7 win over then-No. 1 Texas, Ohio State has won 10 straight games by at least 18 points. The Buckeyes have faced just one ranked opponent (Illinois) since the start of September, and they haven’t trailed in the second half of a game all year.

Saturday’s game against Rutgers was the same old story for the Buckeyes. Ohio State cruised to a 42-9 win over the Scarlet Knights in the final home game of the year at Ohio Stadium, locking up a College Football Playoff berth with its 11th win of the season. Even with star receivers Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate sidelined for the day, Ohio State had nearly three times as many yards as Rutgers (430 to 147).

The Buckeyes’ tuneup season is over now, though. The competition is about to get much tougher, starting next week with a trip to Ann Arbor.

On paper, Ohio State should beat Michigan. The Wolverines have been a flawed team all season, losing to Oklahoma and USC and barely beating unranked teams like Nebraska, Purdue and Northwestern. Saturday’s 45-20 win at Maryland was just Michigan’s second victory by more than 17 points all season, the other coming in Week 3 against Central Michigan. The Wolverines will likely be without their best player, standout running back Justice Haynes.

But Ohio State has lost its regular-season finale to Michigan in all of the last four years, including last year in Columbus when the Wolverines were just 6-5 with one of the worst passing offenses in the country. Michigan is the best team Ohio State has played since Texas, and next week’s game comes with the added challenge of playing on the road against a hated rival that’s had the Buckeyes’ number since 2021.

As easy as the Buckeyes have made things look all season, they know nothing will come easy from this point forward.

“It's going to take everything we got and everything we've been doing the past 11 weeks,” Ohio State center Carson Hinzman said of the challenge of beating Michigan. “We're going to need all of it when we walk in there.”

That said, Ohio State believes the key to its continued success is to just keep doing what it’s been doing all year.

“We're excited about this one,” Ryan Day said in reference to the Michigan game, “and just need to focus on what really matters, and that's everybody just doing their job and going on the road in what's going to be a great environment and going to get it done. So that'll be the focus, and we'll continue to do what we've done all year. That's it. And have a great week and focus on that day, and the coaches’ job is to give them a great plan, and we've got to be at our best.”

“It's a huge week, but we're going to stick to our regular routine like we did all season,” added Ohio State defensive end Kenyatta Jackson Jr. “Nothing's going to change. We're going to stick to it, and we're going to prepare real hard.”

Based on how the Buckeyes have played through their first 11 games of the season, there’s good reason to believe they can not only beat Michigan, but win the Big Ten championship and a second straight national championship. That all starts with Ohio State’s defense, which has been the best in the country all year long, leading the nation with just 7.6 points allowed per game, 206.6 yards allowed per game and 3.75 yards allowed per play.

Things have been a bit more inconsistently offensively, but Ohio State’s rushing offense has gained momentum in its last two games with 476 combined yards and eight touchdowns — albeit against the two worst run defenses in the Big Ten. The Buckeyes’ passing offense has looked championship-caliber for most of the season, but the health of Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate looms large entering the biggest games of the year, as Julian Sayin threw for less than 200 yards in each of the last two games with his star receivers sidelined.

As dominant as Ohio State has been all season, the Buckeyes haven’t accomplished any of their major goals yet. As great as their 11-0 start has been, their season will ultimately be defined by how they perform in the rest of their games – all of which could be tougher than any game they’ve played so far.

But the Buckeyes haven’t played down to their competition at any point this season, and they know from both their failure in The Game last year and their success in last season’s College Football Playoff what it takes to win in the biggest games of the season. They’re about to find out if they have what it takes to win those games again, but they’re ready to draw from everything they learned last year and build upon what they’ve done well this year to try to make it happen.

“This week has gotta be the best (week of preparation Ohio State has had),” Day said. “We've been working toward this all year, and we want it. We know that the opponent is different. We know what's at stake. We know we're playing for hardware now. But at the end of the day, it's still about us. We can't all of a sudden change things. And so we want to keep it as routine as we can, knowing that, again, now we're playing for hardware. And not only Gold Pants, but also an opportunity to get to Indy.”