Is Ohio State ready for 2026? Thoughts on new coaches, a tough schedule and a busy January

Ohio State had an eventful January, as coach Ryan Day addressed some major needs after the Buckeyes’ Cotton Bowl loss to Miami. He added an experienced offensive play caller in Arthur Smith, hired Robby Discher as special teams coordinator and put together The Athletic’s No. 12 transfer portal class.

After some postseason time off, here are some offseason thoughts as Ohio State moves forward to the 2026 season:

Day is not stubborn

Ohio State’s 24-14 loss to Miami spurred a lot of criticism of Day, and for good reason. Ohio State’s offense struggled mightily in its final two games, scoring a combined 24 points, so the pressure was on Day to find answers.

Knowing how competitive Day is, I thought it was only a matter of time before he hired an experienced offensive coordinator to lead the offense after Brian Hartline took the USF head coaching job. There was never a chance he was going to hire another first-time play caller or promote from within.

The bigger surprise was the addition of the special teams coordinator. Last season’s struggles, especially against Miami, were the final straw. The hiring of Discher from Illinois is a step in the right direction for a coach who is trying to think outside the box to get his program back to the national championship.

It’s not that hiring a special teams coordinator is innovative, but Day now has three coordinators in Smith, Discher and Matt Patricia, and none of them have positions to coach — and two of them won’t even go on the road to recruit. Their jobs are simple: Be the head coach of your unit.

This staff is set up to be self-sufficient while Day floats from room to room and is able to run the program as a whole. Say what you want about Day, but he’s the furthest thing from stubborn. Each change he’s made in the past three offseasons has made that statement more obvious.

I’m not sure if this team will win a national championship — we’re a long way from predicting that — but the coaching staff got better this offseason.

Ohio State is all in on the 2026 season

I got the notification of Day hiring Discher while I was on vacation, but I had to look twice at my phone because I was surprised: I didn’t think Day would make that move, but it’s a good one.

My first thought was, “OK, Day is all in on this season.” The moves this offseason feel similar to the ones before the 2024 season, but for different reasons. That offseason, Ohio State did everything it could to retain players and stack talent for a title run. This is more of a program shift, from the portal changes to the coaching staff.

Ohio State has to do everything it can to put it all together for one last run with Jeremiah Smith and Julian Sayin. It can’t waste this year.

Discher is a qualified coach, too. He’s been coaching special teams for much of his career, dating back to the 2012 season at Sam Houston. He’s a true full-time special teams coach, which is a move away from the group approach Ohio State had been using since Parker Fleming was fired two years ago.

We’ll see how much Discher can fix, but his hiring alone is a sign that Day was sick of losing games because of special teams miscues. It was time for a change in approach.

A loaded 2026 schedule

Ohio State’s opponents have been known for a while, but the official Big Ten schedule has finally been released, answering the question of how games against Iowa, Indiana, Oregon, Michigan, Texas and USC will be sequenced.

For the most part, Ohio State got a break.

The Buckeyes get three home games in September, with the only road game at Texas in Week 2. Getting Illinois as the first Big Ten game is a win for Ohio State because the Illini should be enough of a challenge to dispel any nonconference hangovers. The hardest part of the schedule begins with a road trip to Indiana on Oct. 17.  The Buckeyes go to Indiana, get a bye week, and then have to make a trip to Los Angeles to play USC before they come right back to Columbus to play Oregon the following weekend.  That’s a rugged stretch, and I think many people would have preferred to see Ohio State’s bye week come between the USC road trip and the Oregon home game.

That stretch is going to determine Ohio State’s season. Ohio State could be 5-1 going into those games. If that is the case, it can afford to drop one of those three and then win out to reach the Playoff.

It’ll also put Ohio State’s depth and talent to the test. The Buckeyes didn’t have a stretch like this last year thanks to Penn State’s massive struggles, so if it comes out of this stretch on the right side, it should feel good about its chances to make a CFP run.

Lose two of those games plus Texas, and Ohio State would need Michigan to be ranked and to win The Game to make an argument for a bid with three losses.

Regardless of how it all shakes out, this will be a fun season with a lot of important games for the Buckeyes.

A late portal addition

The Buckeyes landed a commitment from Dartmouth offensive tackle transfer Vasean Washington on Jan. 28 as a final piece of their portal puzzle.

This was not necessarily a move about finding a true starter, but Washington — who is from Springfield, Ohio — at least adds some experienced depth. He is a fifth-year senior, so it’ll be interesting to see if he can push for playing time in his final season.

I think the offensive line is mostly set for next season with Carson Hinzman, Luke Montgomery, Austin Siereveld, Phillip Daniels and Ian Moore as the projected starters. I assume Washington will be on the second team, but a good spring could bring more competition, which is always good for Ohio State, given the ups and downs of the unit in recent years.

Final roster thoughts

With the addition of Washington, Ohio State’s roster should be set for the upcoming season. Is it good enough to live up to the lofty early rankings that have Ohio State among the consensus top two or three teams in the country?

Let’s think about it. Sayin and Smith are enough to skew those rankings; the return of a Heisman finalist quarterback and arguably the best player in the country give the Buckeyes — who have had 12 consecutive top-10 finishes — a strong foundation, even if they are losing a lot of talent on defense for the second year in a row.

I like what Ohio State did in the transfer portal, the safeties are talented, the defensive line is deep, the receivers should be fine around Smith, Bo Jackson is an emerging star at running back and the linebacking corps has a high ceiling despite losing a pair of probable first-round picks. This is a roster that, barring any major injuries, should be good enough to make a deep Playoff run.

The star power is among the best in the country, and if younger players like cornerback Devin Sanchez and linebacker Riley Pettijohn can show growth, Ohio State will likely contend for another championship.

For all the talk about the transfer portal and losing 31 players, the Buckeyes did a nice job reshaping the program to keep it on sturdy ground.