Ohio State's loaded roster projected to suffer early stumble vs. Arch Manning, Texas

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In Columbus, the standard never changes: win the Big Ten, beat Michigan and compete for a national championship. Anything less is a failure.

Head coach Ryan Day enters the 2026 season with another phenomenally loaded roster, but navigating the 18-team conference requires absolute perfection—a standard that CBS Sports predicts the Buckeyes will fail to meet early on.

A closer look at the conference landscape reveals that a flawless run might be an unrealistic expectation, even for a roster this loaded. Analyst Brad Crawford’s latest game-by-game picks slate Ohio State for a 10-2 finish, forcing the Buckeyes to bypass an automatic conference-champion bid and instead rely on an at-large invitation to navigate the postseason.

The defining narrative of Ohio State's season might be written before conference play even begins. Following tune-up wins against Ball State and Kent State, Crawford's model projects a massive early-season stumble, predicting the Buckeyes will travel to Austin in Week 2 and suffer a non-conference loss to the Texas Longhorns.

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For a roster dripping with NFL talent, especially with quarterback Julian Sayin and wide receiver Jeremiah Smith returning to Columbus, dropping a marquee national showcase game in September immediately puts Day's squad in a high-pressure, zero-margin-for-error scenario for the remainder of the autumn.

To their credit, Crawford projects that the Buckeyes will rally from the loss to Texas to dominate the majority of their Big Ten slate. The model predicts Ohio State will secure massive victories over USC, Oregon, and rival Michigan, while surviving tough road trips to Iowa and Nebraska.

However, Crawford anticipates a second inexplicable stumble—a shocking road loss to Indiana—proving that even a loaded Ohio State roster "won't be immune to a pair of regular-season stumbles against championship-caliber opponents."

Despite the two losses, an 8-1 conference record will be enough to punch Ohio State’s ticket to Indianapolis for the Big Ten Championship game. But the projections offer no salvation for Day. Crawford predicts a rematch with Oregon for the league trophy, ending in disaster for the Buckeyes.

"The Ducks' experience, quarterback play and overall roster balance prove to be the difference in a tightly-contested title game, sending the Buckeyes into the playoff as an at-large team rather than conference champions," Crawford wrote.

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For a fanbase exhausted by near-misses, watching a historically loaded roster suffer a marquee non-conference loss, drop a puzzling conference game, and ultimately fail to lift the Big Ten trophy would make 2026 a familiar, deeply frustrating campaign in Columbus.