{"id":30304,"date":"2020-08-07T09:00:22","date_gmt":"2020-08-07T13:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordoncollegefootball.com\/?p=30304"},"modified":"2020-08-06T17:57:43","modified_gmt":"2020-08-06T21:57:43","slug":"ohio-state-schedule-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2020\/08\/07\/ohio-state-schedule-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Observations on the Ohio State Schedule"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ohio State and the Big Ten announced the conference-only 2020 schedule on Wednesday, less than a month before the season will start.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The official schedule of <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/B1Gfootball?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@B1Gfootball<\/a> has been released <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/1GIO5phKYV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/1GIO5phKYV<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; \ud83c\udfc8LastWordOnCFB\ud83c\udfc8 (@LastWordOnCFB) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LastWordOnCFB\/status\/1291006276282064897?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">August 5, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>This is an unusual year in sports. There are some nuances in the schedule that will only apply to this season.<\/p>\n<p>Ohio State hasn&#8217;t played in a ten-game regular season since 1973, and they have never had a conference-only schedule. This is truly a once-in-a-lifetime schedule.<\/p>\n<p>There are five things that stand out about the revised Ohio State schedule.<\/p>\n<h2>Five Observations on the Ohio State Schedule<\/h2>\n<h3>&#8220;The Game&#8221; is Now in October<\/h3>\n<p>Most Ohio State fans probably look at the bottom in search of &#8220;the game&#8221; against that team up north.<\/p>\n<p>The Michigan game, which has been the last game in November since 1933, is now in October.<\/p>\n<p>Rivalry Week in the Big Ten has been taken away. Wisconsin plays Minnesota in Week 4. Iowa plays Nebraska the same day. Illinois and Northwestern match up in Week 7.<\/p>\n<p>The weekend of November 27th, the original date of Rivalry Week this season, is now open. So Ohio State&#8217;s last regular-season game will be against Iowa on November 21st.<\/p>\n<p>Iowa has more wins against Ohio State since 2004, so this might be a more even matchup. With the 2017 loss still fresh in Ohio State fans&#8217; memories, a win against Iowa will still be satisfying.<\/p>\n<h3>Opportunity for Makeup Games Later in the Schedule<\/h3>\n<p>The Big Ten left one week open in between the last regular-season game and the conference championship. Presumably, this was done in case games had to be canceled. There are also two bye weeks, so a game could potentially be rescheduled during one of those.<\/p>\n<p>The game most in danger of being canceled right now is the one against the Scarlet Knights. Rutgers has handled COVID-19 about as badly as possible. There were 28 people in the football program that tested positive as of August 5th. They experienced a surge of cases after some players attended a party.<\/p>\n<p>If Rutgers doesn&#8217;t get the football program under control, then their September 12th game in Columbus is in danger of cancelation.<\/p>\n<p>If that happens, then the game could be moved to Week 13.<\/p>\n<h3>Ohio State Will Likely Be Heavy Favorites in Every Game<\/h3>\n<p>Ohio State canceled their trip to Eugene, Oregon, which was a huge blow to the strength of schedule.<\/p>\n<p>Ohio State somehow missed the two toughest West Division teams, Wisconsin and Minnesota. They will play Iowa, but that is going to be a favorable matchup, as will be explained below.<\/p>\n<p>Other than Iowa, Ohio State&#8217;s toughest non-division games will be at Illinois on September 3rd to open the season and at Purdue on September 19th. Those West Division opponents had a combined 16-19 conference record last season.<\/p>\n<p>The Buckeyes&#8217; only challenging games within their division will be against Michigan and Penn State. Even still, Ohio State will likely be favorites in both.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not just possible that Ohio State will be undefeated in conference play; that will be the expectation.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #111111; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 22px;\">The Dreaded Iowa Game<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Over the last three seasons, Ohio State has suffered devastating losses to inferior teams in the West Division.<\/p>\n<p>Iowa and Purdue are the two teams that Ohio State usually stumbles over. This year, Ohio State plays them both.<\/p>\n<p>This season, the Big Ten made Iowa as easy an opponent as possible.<\/p>\n<p>First of all, the Buckeyes have a bye week before the November 21st matchup. They have two weeks to prepare for the Hawkeyes. Meanwhile, Iowa hosts Wisconsin on November 14th. Playing Wisconsin and Ohio State back-to-back will give Iowa the hardest two-week stretch.<\/p>\n<p>Second of all, the game is Columbus, so the Buckeyes won&#8217;t have the pink locker room to worry about.<\/p>\n<h3>There Are No Difficult Stretches in the Schedule<\/h3>\n<p>Pretty much every opponent that can threaten Ohio State is sandwiched in between a bye week.<\/p>\n<p>The only games in which Ohio State does not have exceptionally high chances of winning are Michigan and Penn State.<\/p>\n<p>The Buckeyes play a weakened Michigan State the week before they play Michigan. Then they play Maryland, followed by Penn State. Then there&#8217;s the bye week before the Iowa game, and those are Ohio State&#8217;s three winningest opponents from last year.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes it seems like Ohio State plays all their tough games right after another. That&#8217;s not the case this year. The Buckeyes should have a chance to catch their breath between their toughest games.<\/p>\n<p>There should be <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordoncollegefootball.com\/2020\/06\/27\/ohio-state-trap-game-2020\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">no trap games this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"xtfb1Nt3RvFtDQT9eM5OqQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/857641092\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'xtfb1Nt3RvFtDQT9eM5OqQ',sig:'CgIgJ56D3TnQpMkgKRs4dgxnNKwuGj0vNV5D1a25Lhk=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'857641092',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ohio State and the Big Ten announced the conference-only 2020 schedule on Wednesday, less than a month before the season will start. This is an unusual year in sports. There are some nuances in the schedule that will only apply to this season. Ohio State hasn&#8217;t played in a ten-game regular season since 1973, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3361,"featured_media":30353,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2],"tags":[7983,319,279,73,309],"class_list":["post-30304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bigten","category-featured","tag-big-ten-football","tag-iowa-hawkeyes","tag-michigan-wolverines","tag-ohio-state-buckeyes","tag-penn-state-nittany-lions"],"modified_by":"Maggie Yarnell, Senior Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3361"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}