Ed. note: Chat Sports has conducted interviews with four prominent Buckeye bloggers and writers from several different websites to help preview the upcoming season, which will be published in a series on our Ohio State Buckeyes news page. Up first: can the Buckeyes run the table and win their eighth National Title?
UPDATE: Senior running back Carlos Hyde was dismissed from the team Monday morning following an altercation over the weekend. We will update this post with how this loss affect's the Buckeyes chances at the title this season.
What's your final prediction for the Buckeyes this season? What's their record and bowl result? Please explain a few of the key games.
Three of the four writers we interviewed expected Ohio State to go 13-0 and appear in the National Championship game (presumably against Alabama). As far as the result of that game, however, they were a little reluctant to give answers. No one picked the Buckeyes to win outright, but just one picked them to lose.
As far as tough games go, all four writers mentioned, of course, Michigan. How could you not, on the road in a rivalry game? All four also consider a night trip to Northwestern to be a potential trap game, especially with a bye week following. There's also an early-season trip to Cal, a team that gave the Buckeyes all they could handle in the Horseshoe last year.
Kevin Noon, BuckeyeGrove.com (Rivals)
This is the question I always hate to answer because if I come down too hard on the team then I appear to be a hater and if I look like I am giving them all the breaks then I am a homer. There really aren't many "coin flip" games on this schedule and Ohio State should be favored all the way through the year, even in the conference title game against the team that the Legends Division puts out.
The game at Cal-Berkeley was a much tougher game when it was scheduled many years ago, but Sonny Dykes is in his first year there and will be trying to pick up the pieces that Jeff Tedford left for him there. The rebuilding process will not be quick for the Golden Bears.
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Ohio State's second-toughest game of the season will come at Northwestern; the Wildcats are trending upwards and have a lot of talented pieces coming back, including one of the most underrated quarterbacks in the nation. But this is football and not basketball, and while Thad Matta has had some "nail biters" in Evanston, I don't expect Ohio State to fall victim, even if this does shape up to be a perfect trap game with a bye week following.
Of course the toughest game of the season will be at Michigan. The Buckeyes will enter this game 11-0 with a trip to Indy already locked up, but knowing the only chance of staying in the National Championship picture is with a win, and a decisive one to pacify Big Ten hatred in the eyes of many pundits.
The next week the Buckeyes could draw the same Wolverines or get a shot against Michigan State or Nebraska - two teams that Ohio State won't face in the regular season - with a ticket to Pasadena for the title game on the line. Once the dust settles the Buckeyes should be 13-0 and heading West to take on the SEC Champion (likely Alabama), and then it comes down to a one-game season with two of the giants in college football staring each other down from across the sidelines in Urban Meyer and Nick Saban. What a way to end the BCS-era.
Noon's update re. Carlos Hyde's suspension:
Ohio State will still go undefeated on their way to the National Title Game. The schedule is soft, the Buckeyes are loaded at running back and by the time they play Michigan, anyone who steps up in that role will basically have a year of experience under their belt.
Steve Helwagen, Bucknuts.com (24/7 sports)
I have not finalized my pick. I think they do win the first 13 games and then play Alabama or somebody in the National Title Game. I’d say 13-1 if that happens. If quarterback Braxton Miller can improve again and the defense fills the holes up front, they could be 14-0 and win it all. Their schedule is about as easy as we’ve seen, with nobody like USC, Texas or Miami on the non-conference slate and no Michigan State or Nebraska on the Big Ten schedule. I’m going to call it 13-1 with a loss to Alabama in the title game.
The obvious key games are Wisconsin, at Northwestern and at Michigan. Like last year, though (when the Indiana and Purdue games ended up harder than most thought), there will be a game that creeps up on them. Maybe at Cal with a new coach there or Penn State at home.
Helwagen's update re. Carlos Hyde's suspension:
The Buckeyes will still make the title game because they still don’t play anybody.
Marcus Hartman, BuckeyeSports.com (Scout)
Ohio State should certainly have a talent advantage over everyone it faces in the first 12 weeks of the season. California could be tougher than it looks with a new coaching staff in place and it being a West Coast trip, and the night game at Northwestern might get tricky with a Wildcat team that has become a consistent mid-to-upper-tier conference squad in the past half-decade. Winning at Michigan is never easy, but the Wolverines are young in some key spots, particularly both lines, so they don't match up very well with the Buckeyes on paper.
If the Buckeyes bring their A-game every week, they should be 12-0 and headed to Indianapolis for their first Big Ten championship game. There they could get a strength-of-schedule boost if they face Michigan State or Nebraska, since neither of those teams are on the Buckeyes’ regular season schedule. They aren’t pushovers, but both were one-dimensional last season (the Spartans great on defense and the Huskers on offense) with it looking likely that will be the case again this season.
What about the National Championship Game? It's hard to bet against Alabama getting back there based on how the Crimson Tide have recruited over the past few years and the return of McCarron to run the offense. Can Ohio State stop Nick Saban and the roll of the Tide? Don't bet against an Urban Meyer team with a more mature Braxton Miller running an offense full of weapons.
Jeff Svoboda, BuckeyeSports.com (Scout)
On the surface, the Buckeyes don't have the hardest schedule this season, so it's really tempting to pick Ohio State to go 12-0. There isn't a team on the regular season slate that will have more talent than OSU, but it's just so hard to go undefeated in college football - let alone in back-to-back seasons.
There are some interesting games on the schedule, as OSU plays a sneaky-good San Diego State team, must contend with Cal's new offense on the road, and has to go to Northwestern at night. Those could all be tough games, and then there are the usual big ones like Wisconsin, Penn State and Michigan. I don't know where the Buckeyes will slip up, but Ohio State got lucky last year, winning a few games it shouldn't have. With that in mind, I'm going with 11-1, a conference title and a Rose Bowl win. Hey, you can't ever go wrong with being in Pasadena.
Other roundtable questions:
What can stop the Buckeyes this season?
Could Ohio State have beaten Alabama last season?
Top freshman to look out for on the 2013 Buckeyes
Depth chart battles to look out for
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