Eleven Gone to the NFL, Still No. 1: Ohio State’s 2026 Season, by the Numbers

Ohio State won the national title in January 2025, and then 2025 taught it how thin the margins are at the top. The Buckeyes ran the 2025 regular season 12–0, their first 12–0 regular season since 2019, and then it unraveled twice, at the worst possible times. A missed 27-yard field goal with 2:48 left denied them a chance to tie the Big Ten Championship, and Indiana held on 13–10. Three weeks later, Miami bounced them from the Playoff quarterfinal, 24–14. Both losses came to the two teams that would go on to play for the national title. Great season, no trophy.

Then the NFL came and took the roster. Eleven Buckeyes were drafted, four in the top eleven picks (Carnell Tate, Arvell Reese, Sonny Styles, Caleb Downs), the first program since the 1970 merger to do that, with eight defensive starters gone. And Ohio State opens 2026 as the preseason No. 1 in both major polls anyway. That sentence is the whole program in miniature: nobody loses this much and reloads this high.

What BBMI’s model says

This is where we come in. BBMI’s preseason model has Ohio State 1st nationally at +37.6 and 1st of 18 in the Big Ten, the highest-rated team in the country. The engine loves the balance: the SP+ inputs behind that rating grade Ohio State the No. 1 defense and No. 2 offense, the exact mirror of Oregon (No. 1 offense, No. 2 defense), and the two are separated by just 1.7 neutral-field points.

Here’s what’s distinctive about the Buckeyes’ profile: BBMI makes them a favorite in all twelve games. There is no game on the schedule where the model has Ohio State as an underdog, a claim it can’t make about anyone else in this series. But the schedule is a genuine gauntlet, and the expected-win math shows it: even a team favored everywhere projects to about two losses on a slate this hard.

Twelve line-rated games, no FCS dates, and Ohio State is the favorite in every one of them.

Pick the favorites

Pick BBMI’s favorite in every game and it’s 12–0: there is no projected loss anywhere on the board. But the expected-win math (≈9.9) says that’s the ceiling, not the forecast: a schedule with a road trip to Texas, a revenge trip to defending-champion Indiana, another at USC, plus home dates with Oregon and Michigan typically costs even the No. 1 team a game or two. Call the honest projection 10–2. The three real tests, the only games BBMI puts under 67%, are all circled: at Texas (Week 2), at Indiana (the rematch), and Oregon (the preseason No. 1-vs-No. 2 home game).

Reload, not rebuild

The turnover was historic. Beyond the four top-eleven picks, Ohio State lost eight defensive starters and, on the sideline, its offensive coordinator: Brian Hartline left to become the head coach at South Florida. For most programs that’s a rebuilding year. For this one it’s a Tuesday.

The reason is the pipeline. Even after that exodus, Ohio State’s incoming talent, a 247Sports Composite No. 4 high-school class stacked on top of the No. 7 transfer class, grades out as ESPN’s No. 2 newcomer group nationally, behind only LSU. Day replaced Hartline with former NFL head coach Arthur Smith as offensive coordinator, kept Matt Patricia (now the sport’s highest-paid coordinator) running the defense, and rolls on. Overseeing all of it is Ryan Day, who enters 2026 at 82–12, the highest winning percentage of any active Division I head coach, with a national title and a 16–10 record against top-10 teams. The questions that trail him are about sustaining success on the biggest stages: the four-game losing streak to Michigan he finally ended in 2025, and whether the 2024 national championship becomes the start of something or the high point. A 2026 schedule stacked with top-10 tests will ask them again.

Combine the No. 4 high-school class with the No. 7 portal haul and Ohio State’s newcomer talent still grades No. 2 nationally (ESPN), behind only LSU. That’s the whole reason reload and not rebuild.

The quarterback is the constant

The exodus took almost everything except the two most important pieces, and the first is the reigning wonder-kid at quarterback. Julian Sayin returns as QB1 after a debut season that belongs in a highlight reel: as a redshirt freshman, he started all 14 games, threw for 3,610 yards, 32 touchdowns and just 8 interceptions, and completed a nation-leading 77.0% of his passes. He won the Shaun Alexander National Freshman of the Year Award, was Big Ten Freshman of the Year, and finished as a Heisman Trophy finalist. He enters 2026 squarely in the Heisman conversation.

That is a rare kind of insurance. Ohio State can lose eight defensive starters and four first-round picks and still trot out arguably the best young quarterback in the country, running an offense the SP+ inputs rank No. 2 nationally. Few teams replace this much and keep a piece this good.

And the best receiver in football

The second piece he throws to is the reason Ohio State’s ceiling is a national title: Jeremiah Smith came back. Not yet draft-eligible until 2027, Smith returns for what is likely his final college season; he said he could have made more than $10 million by entering the transfer portal, and stayed anyway. He is, by broad consensus, the No. 1 returning player in college football, and he enters 2026 within striking distance of all three major Buckeye career receiving records. In 2025 he caught 87 passes for 1,243 yards and 12 touchdowns, his second straight 1,000-yard season; his two-year totals (2,558 yards, 27 TDs) lead the nation among returning receivers.

Around the two stars, the skill positions reload the usual way. Sophomore back Bo Jackson, yes, that name, ran for 1,090 yards as a freshman and headlines a backfield that also features a surging Isaiah West. Brandon Inniss returns at receiver, portal additions Devin McCuin (UTSA) and Kyle Parker (LSU) add depth, and five-star freshman Chris Henry Jr. arrives. New coordinator Arthur Smith inherits a genuinely loaded room.

The defense: the reload’s steepest climb

This is the one place even Ohio State should feel the losses. The defense sent three first-round picks to the NFL (Reese, Styles, Downs) among eight departed starters, and yet the SP+ input behind BBMI’s rating still grades it the No. 1 unit in the country. That is a bet on Ohio State’s recruiting and development pipeline over proven production, and it’s the single biggest projection in the model’s read on the Buckeyes.

The returners give it a spine: edge Kenyatta Jackson Jr. (6.5 sacks in 2025, the top returning rusher), rising corner Devin Sanchez, safety Jaylen McClain, and corner Jermaine Mathews Jr., with Alabama transfer DL James Smith added up front. Coordinator Matt Patricia, entering his second season, has the talent: the job is turning a roster full of former five-stars into an actual defense by the time the gauntlet hits in October. If any program can replace this much and stay elite, it’s this one. But it’s the roster’s real question.

The factory

Every other preview in this series has had an in-state angle, a homegrown quarterback, a fading walk-on pipeline. Ohio State’s honest version is that it doesn’t rebuild because it out-recruits and out-develops everyone. Four top-eleven picks in one draft isn’t just a loss; it’s the proof of concept: you don’t put four players in the top eleven and stay No. 1 unless the pipeline behind them is the best in the sport. The Buckeyes reload the way most programs hope to sign a single class. The only question 2026 actually asks is whether even the best factory in college football can replace this particular haul, eight defensive starters and four premium picks, without a dip.

The one that matters

For a team favored in every game, the one to circle is October 17 at Indiana, the closest game BBMI puts on Ohio State’s schedule (about 60%, a five-point road favorite), and the only rematch on it that carries a scar. This is the game the Buckeyes lost 13–10 in December, when a missed 27-yard field goal denied them even a chance to tie, now replayed on the road at the defending national champions. Win it and the path to the Big Ten title and the No. 1 seed opens up; it also happens to be the revenge game. The marquee names come later, Oregon at home November 7, the preseason No. 1 against the preseason No. 2, then Michigan in the finale with the Buckeyes trying to make it two straight in The Game, and BBMI favors Ohio State in both. That’s the point of being No. 1: one of the hardest schedules in the country, and not a single game the model expects you to lose.

BBMI is rolling out college football coverage as the season approaches. Ohio State closes out the Big Ten slate as the model’s No. 1 team. Model ratings are preseason and update as real games are played.