Opinion: Why Ohio State is the most overrated team in college football

Before I start it must be acknowledged that the Buckeyes are definitely one of the top teams in the nation right now. But the expectations placed on this team because of the excellence of their team last year are likely too high for this team to live. An example of these sky-high expectations is that Ohio State’s are more than a 20 point favorite, up against another top ten team in Indiana, this week. There are reasons for the line to be so high, like Justin Fields’ continued excellence helping the offense play at an elite level, but it seems like people may think that the Ohio State team of last year is going to turn up and stomp the Hoosiers but that is quite unlikely. Instead I expect that the best Indiana team that some of their fans have ever seen, will give Ryan Day’s squad a close game.

While Ohio st. will probably end up winning based solely off this season there isn’t a huge gap between the level that these two teams have played at. Ohio State’s top win this year is probably a 13 point win against a winless Penn State while Indiana has beaten not only Penn State but also Michigan. Indiana and Ohio state are both currently undefeated but Indiana has a much higher strength of schedule. To be fair it is hard to tell the strength of lots of Big Ten teams because some teams that were expected to be competitive in the conference seem to not even be very good.

From a statistical standpoint this Ohio State defense does not come close to their team from last year. Their offense seems to have sustained their high level of play but the numbers show that there is also some regression there. Again the regression for this team has been exhibited against teams far below the standard of the opponents they faced last year.

Given all this information it seems ridiculous that the Buckeyes are ranked so much higher than teams that are proven to be good this year in the AP poll. For example undefeated Oregon is ranked 11th because they have only played 2 games while Ohio State has played three games against below average competition and they’re ranked 3rd. This begs the question based on only this year why is Ohio State ranked so much higher than teams that have played similarly well this year?