As if Urban Meyer didn’t have a tough enough job, having to replace so many starters for 2016, a close inspection of the schedule reveals another factor that might keep him up nights throughout the off-season. The Buckeyes will have to face perhaps the toughest collection of road games in years.
Cormac McCarthy wrote The Road, about a father and his son traversing a post-apocalyptic hellscape. It’s bleak. The man and his boy spend the entire thing trying not to die at the hands of cannibals, starvation, exposure or any number of other things that can kill them.
I wouldn’t say Ohio State’s road in 2016 is quite so hopeless ad McCarthy’s novel, but it certainly won’t be easy.
The Buckeyes will take to the road for games at Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Penn State, Maryland and Michigan State. That kind of road slate will put any team in peril. All of those teams, outside of perhaps Maryland, will be formidable road tests, and the Terrapins come in a potential trap position, just one week before the Sparty game. Wisconsin and Penn State are also back-to-back, in two of the B1G’s toughest venues.
Interviewing past players on the Eleven Dubcast over the past couple of years, nearly every player we’ve talked to has indicated that Penn State is the toughest road environment they faced in conference play. Even when the Nittany Lions aren’t at their best, they are bolstered by the crowds at Beaver Stadium.
If not 2008, you’d likely have to go all the way back to 2001 to find as tough a road schedule.
Oklahoma is coming off an appearance in the College Football Playoff, as is Michigan State, the defending conference champion. Wisconsin will be one of the B1G West’s better teams. Combine those with the tough atmosphere in Happy Valley and Maryland’s potential to become a trap game and you’ve got potential pitfalls all over the place.
A comparison between the 2016 road slate and 2015 isn’t even a contest. Ohio State is coming off a season in which it visited Virginia Tech (OK, not an easy place to play most of the time), Indiana, Rutgers, Illinois and Michigan. As a member of the B1G’s East Division, the Buckeyes won’t get many easier conference road schedules than that.
During the championship run of 2014, Ohio State went to Maryland, Penn State, Michigan State, Minnesota and a neutral site game against Navy. The 2013 road slate was ass-tastic, with the Buckeyes visiting California, Northwestern, Purdue, Illinois and Michigan.
You have to go back to 2008 to find a road schedule as formidable as the one Ohio State will face next season. That year, the Buckeyes visited No. 1 USC, No. 18 Wisconsin, and No. 20 Michigan State, in addition to Northwestern and Illinois.
If not 2009, you’d likely have to go all the way back to 2001 to find as tough a road schedule. That season, the Buckeyes went to visit No. 14 UCLA, Indiana, Penn State, Minnesota, and No. 11 Michigan.
So, what are Ohio State’s prospects to get through the road schedule unscathed in 2016? With so many new starters, you’d have to think there is at least one stumble in there somewhere. Oklahoma and Michigan State might be the most likely spots, although the Buckeyes have actually played Sparty better in East Lansing than elsewhere in recent years — the Buckeyes are 2-0 in East Lansing since 2010 and 0-3 against the Spartans at home or a neutral site over that same period.
Beyond Oklahoma and Michigan State, the next toughest tests are in Madison and Happy Valley. Wisconsin might have a slightly better team but Penn State is probably the tougher venue. Maryland, meanwhile, provides the least intimidating atmosphere of the group and may be the weakest team of the bunch, but the Terrapins will be under new management on the field and as mentioned above, they’re in the perfect position to spring a trap.
With a young team next season, you might be inclined to think the Buckeyes could drop two or three of those road contests. The counterpoint: Urban Meyer is 18-0 in true road games at Ohio State. I’m sure it will be fine.
