Buckeyes open camp at No. 1 overall
Ohio State starts the year as the unanimous preseason favorite with 40 first-place votes, and Ryan Day says this fall's receiver room is the deepest he's had — all of it building toward the Ball State opener.
Ohio State enters the season No. 1 in America
The AP dropped its preseason Top 25 on August 17 and put Ohio State at No. 1 with 40 of the 65 first-place votes, well clear of Oregon at No. 2 — @AP_Top25 noted it's only the second time ever the Big Ten has held the top two spots in a preseason poll. @CFBHome had the full breakdown of the vote: Ohio State's 40 first-place votes to Oregon's 14, with Indiana picking up eight and Notre Dame six. It is the kind of number that gets printed on t-shirts by September and forgotten by October if the season doesn't back it up, and @Brett_McMurphy was quick to point out why that matters — of the last 22 teams to open No. 1 in the AP poll, 20 failed to win the national title, with Alabama in 2017 the last to pull it off.
The Buckeyes are at least building the case that this team is different up front. Ryan Day told reporters at his August 25 press conference that the offensive line — with Carson Hinzman at center, Austin Siereveld sliding to left guard next to Ian Moore and Phillip Daniels — gives him more depth than he's had "probably... in a long time," per The Lantern. He was even more bullish at receiver, saying the room is "way better than it was last year, in my opinion," with Jeremiah Smith, Brandon Inniss and transfers Devin McCuin and Kyle Parker pushing freshmen Chris Henry Jr. and Brock Boyd for snaps — Day said he can see six receivers playing meaningful roles this season. Julian Sayin returns as the starter after a Heisman-finalist season, and behind him Tavien St. Clair is holding off true freshman Luke Fahey for the backup job, per 247Sports — the one competition in Columbus that isn't settled yet.
None of that shows up in a 0-0 record, which is the whole point of a preseason ranking — it is a bet on the roster, not a result. Ohio State gets to start cashing that bet in on September 5.
Last season ended in Miami, not the way anyone wanted
Whatever the polls say about this team, last season's Buckeyes were finishing streaky, not steady. They blew out UCLA 48-10 on November 16 and Rutgers 42-9 the following week, then went into Ann Arbor and beat Michigan 27-9 on November 29 — a comfortable margin in the sport's nastiest rivalry. Two weeks later Indiana beat them 13-10 at home, and last season closed with a 24-14 bowl loss to Miami on January 1, a finish nobody in Columbus wanted to be the last memory of the year.
That is the form Ohio State carries into a preseason No. 1 ranking — a team that could look unbeatable for six weeks and then lose two of its last three games. It's exactly the pattern Brett McMurphy's stat above is warning about, and it's why fall camp roster answers matter more than the poll number does.
Two more names just earned their stripe
Ohio State's own account is mostly countdowns and hype clips this time of year, but on August 26 it carried something that actually means something inside the building. The Buckeyes' "Black Stripe" is a real program tradition — newcomers wear a piece of black tape over the Buckeye leaf decal on their helmet until the veterans and coaches decide they've earned it removed — and @OhioStateFB posted two alerts within three minutes of each other. Receiver Quay Guilford got the call first, welcomed as "a deep threat & a playmaker" for the Zone 6 room, followed by defensive back Connor Hawkins, described as having "ice in his veins."
🚨 𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗽𝗲 𝗔𝗹𝗲𝗿𝘁 🚨 Zone 6 is adding a deep threat & a playmaker to the room ‼️ Welcome to the Brotherhood, @QuayGuilford 🌰 t.co/cLBUiPjfvL
It's a small thing to post but not a small thing to earn, and with the opener nine days out, it says the staff is still finalizing who's actually one of them — not just on the roster, but in the room. For a fan trying to figure out who to watch on the two-deep once the games start counting, a Black Stripe post is a better tip than a depth chart leak.
A 50-point spread and a shoulder to watch before kickoff
The opener is set for Saturday, September 5 at 11:30 AM against Ball State at Ohio Stadium, and the board reflects the gap on paper — the line opened at Ohio State -50.5 with the total set at 56.5, a middling number for a game this lopsided, suggesting the market isn't expecting a track meet even with the Buckeyes this heavily favored. Ball State enters 0-0 and last played out last season with a 24-45 loss at Miami. The one name worth tracking on the injury front is running back B. Jackson, listed Questionable with a shoulder issue as of August 11 per Covers' aggregated injury table — Questionable is a real doubt, not a ruled-out, and it's simply unclear yet whether he plays.
The bigger test comes a week later, on September 12 at Texas, and it's the game that will actually tell fans something about this No. 1 ranking. Arch Manning has had what Steve Sarkisian called a "great" fall camp, and Texas got a boost up front when lineman Cole Hutson rejoined the roster after an eligibility ruling right as camp opened, according to Yahoo Sports and On3. Ball State first, then a real answer in Austin.