5 Reasons Why the Ohio State Buckeyes Won’t Win the 2026-27 NCAAF Championship
The Ohio State championship odds are the shortest number on the board at +600, and for the most talented roster in college football that is a defensible price. It is also a price that asks you to look past a lot. Four Buckeyes came off the board in the first 11 picks of the 2026 NFL Draft, three of them from the best defense in the country. ESPN’s Football Power Index rates their schedule the eighth-toughest in the sport. And their season ended with back-to-back losses to the only two teams that reached the national title game.
Indiana cleared the road on the way out the door. The Hoosiers went 16-0, beat Miami 27-21 for the first title in program history, then sent Heisman winner Fernando Mendoza to Las Vegas as the No. 1 overall pick. Somebody new is winning this thing. The market says Ohio State is the likeliest candidate, and the market is probably right. Here are five reasons the Buckeyes are still a shaky place to put your money.
Where the Ohio State Championship Odds Sit Right Now
Ohio State is the outright favorite at +600, with Notre Dame a close second at +650. That is a narrow gap for a market that supposedly has a clear best team. Six other programs are priced at +1100 or shorter, which is a crowded top tier by any historical standard, and Indiana sits fifth on the board at +800 despite going undefeated eight months ago.
| Team | Title Odds | Market-Implied Chance |
|---|---|---|
| Ohio State | +600 | 14.3% |
| Notre Dame | +650 | 13.3% |
| Texas | +750 | 11.8% |
| Oregon | +750 | 11.8% |
| Indiana | +800 | 11.1% |
| Georgia | +850 | 10.5% |
| Miami | +1100 | 8.3% |
Odds are DraftKings prices as of July 29 and they move constantly. The implied percentages are the raw market numbers before the book’s margin is stripped out, so treat them as a rough read on what the market thinks rather than a true probability. If you have not bet a season-long ticket before, our futures betting guide covers how these prices are built and why they drift all season.
Read the board top to bottom and the story is not “Ohio State is the class of the sport.” It is “seven teams have a real case and Ohio State has the best one.” That distinction is the whole article.
1. The Buckeyes Lost Too Much Defensive Talent
Ohio State did not just lose good defensive players. It lost the No. 5, No. 7 and No. 11 picks in the NFL draft, one from every level of a unit that finished first nationally in total defense at 219.1 yards per game, first in scoring defense at 9.3 points, and first against the pass at 129.7 yards. That was the first team since 2011 Alabama to lead the country in both yards and points allowed.
| Player | Role | 2025 Production | Draft Slot |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arvell Reese | Edge | 69 tackles, 10 TFL, 6 sacks | No. 5, Giants |
| Sonny Styles | Linebacker | 82 tackles, 6.5 TFL, 1 INT | No. 7, Commanders |
| Caleb Downs | Safety | 68 tackles, 5 TFL, 2 INT | No. 11, Cowboys |
Downs was the quarterback of the secondary, Reese was the menace on the edge, and Styles ran the middle of the field. Losing one of those three would be a normal offseason problem. Losing all three at once, plus interior lineman Kayden McDonald, means the front seven and the back end are both getting rebuilt in the same summer.
The one real counterweight is that Matt Patricia stayed. Ohio State kept its defensive coordinator, which means the scheme and the teaching survive even though the bodies do not, and Patricia has already reloaded this unit once. Recruiting and the portal will keep the talent level high. The honest read is that the Buckeyes will be very good on defense again and nowhere near the historic outlier they were last year, and the +600 price is built on the outlier.
2. Ohio State’s Schedule Is Incredibly Difficult
Ohio State drew the eighth-toughest schedule in the country by ESPN’s FPI ratings and the fourth-toughest by SP+, the hardest slate of any Big Ten team. Three of the seven shortest-priced teams on the entire championship board are on it, which is the part that should give a futures bettor pause.
| Opponent | Site | Their Title Odds |
|---|---|---|
| Texas (Sept. 12) | Away | +750 |
| Oregon | Home | +750 |
| Indiana | Away | +800 |
| USC | Away | +3500 |
| Michigan | Home | +4000 |
The gauntlet starts early. Ohio State opens against Ball State on September 5, a game it should win comfortably, and then goes to Austin seven days later. These two waged an ugly, gorgeous 14-7 defensive fight in Columbus last August. This time the Buckeyes have to do it on the road, in week two, with a defense that has three new starters in the front seven and a rebuilt secondary. If that unit is not close to midseason form by September 12, the loss column opens immediately. The full slate is on the official Ohio State schedule page.
Texas is not the only trap, and it may not even be the worst one. The Buckeyes have to visit Indiana, the team that already beat them once, and host Oregon. Add a trip to USC and the Michigan game and you have five legitimate stumbling blocks in a twelve-game season. None of that makes 12-0 impossible. It does mean everything has to go right, and “everything goes right” is a heavy assumption to bake into a 6-to-1 shot. We made a related argument recently about which preseason top-10 team is most likely to disappoint, and schedule strength was the deciding factor there too.
3. The College Football Playoff Keeps Getting Harder
The playoff stays at 12 teams in 2026, and that is worse news for Ohio State than expansion would have been. Commissioners could not agree on a bigger field, with the Big Ten pushing for 24 teams and the SEC holding at 16, so the bracket that already ended Ohio State’s title defense is the same bracket they have to survive again.
Last season is the case study. Ohio State entered the Cotton Bowl as the defending national champion, the No. 2 seed, and a heavy favorite. Miami, the No. 10 seed, led 14-0 at halftime and won 24-14. The Buckeyes allowed 24 points after allowing 9.3 per game all year, and scored 14 after averaging far more. One bad afternoon in Arlington ended a season that a lot of people had already awarded.
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Futures tickets pay for a bracket, not a season
A championship future needs a team to win a conference race and then three or four single-elimination games against opponents it did not choose. Ohio State went 12-0 last year and still cashed nothing. That gap between “best team” and “team that wins it all” is the risk you are actually buying at +600.
Nothing about the 2026 bracket is friendlier. Ohio State will very likely be in it, probably seeded high, and then subjected to the same random tournament where the wrong opponent on the wrong day ends everything. If you want the deeper version of that math, we broke down whether neutral-site playoff games are actually neutral and the answer complicates a lot of bracket assumptions.
4. Ohio State May Be Too Reliant on Jeremiah Smith
Jeremiah Smith is the best receiver in college football and Ohio State lost almost everything around him. Smith went for seven catches and 157 yards with a fourth-quarter touchdown in the Cotton Bowl, which is roughly the ceiling of what one receiver can do, and the Buckeyes still lost by 10. That is the warning built into the whole offense.
Look at who is gone from that receiver room. Carnell Tate, the WR2, was the No. 4 overall pick in the draft. Behind him, five-star reserves Quincy Porter and Mylan Graham both entered the portal in January and both landed at Notre Dame, the team priced second on the championship board. Ohio State did not just lose its No. 2 target. It handed a title rival two of its own developmental receivers in the same month.
- New play-caller: Brian Hartline left to become head coach at South Florida, and Arthur Smith takes over the offense after 17 years in the NFL
- Backfield turnover: the Buckeyes are working through a changing of the guard at running back after senior contributors played their last game in Arlington
- Line questions: Luke Montgomery and other starters are back up front, but this group gave up five sacks in each of the two losses that ended the season
Smith is going to put up numbers. He always does. The question is whether he is one weapon in a deep, versatile attack or the only man an opposing defensive coordinator has to game-plan for. Miami answered that question in December by taking away everything else and daring Ohio State to run.
5. Julian Sayin May Not Be a Big-Game Winner Yet
Sayin’s numbers were spectacular and his numbers in the three hardest games were not. As a redshirt freshman he threw for 3,610 yards and 32 touchdowns against eight interceptions, led the nation at 77.0% completions, posted a 177.5 rating and finished fourth in Heisman voting. Then look at what happened when the opponent could match Ohio State’s talent.
| Game | Result | Sayin’s Line |
|---|---|---|
| vs. Texas (Aug. 30) | W 14-7 | 13/20, 126 yds, 1 TD |
| vs. Indiana (Big Ten title) | L 13-10 | 21/29, 258 yds, 1 TD, 1 INT, 5 sacks |
| vs. Miami (Cotton Bowl) | L 24-14 | 22/35, 287 yds, 1 TD, 2 INT, 5 sacks |
Three games is a small sample and it would be unfair to hang a season on it. But the pattern inside those three games is specific rather than vague. Sayin’s completion percentage held up in all of them, so this is not a case of a young quarterback melting down. What changed is that the offense stopped producing points: 14 against Texas, 10 against Indiana, 14 against Miami. That is 38 points across the three games that mattered most, from a team that spent the rest of the year burying people.
The sacks are the tell. Five in the Big Ten title game and five more in the Cotton Bowl, against the two defenses good enough to pressure him with four. Sayin was terrific when he had a clean pocket and ordinary when he did not, which is the most normal thing in the world for a first-year starter. It is also exactly the profile that gets exposed in January.
Will the Buckeyes Win the 2026-27 National Championship?
They might, and the market is not wrong to make them the favorite. Ohio State is No. 1 in both ESPN’s FPI and SP+, Ryan Day has already won a national title in 2024, Sayin and Smith are back, and Patricia’s continuity on defense counts for real value. Nobody should raise an eyebrow at +600.
The problem is what that number leaves you no room for. At +600 you are paying a premium for a team with a rebuilt front seven, a new offensive coordinator, a thin receiver room behind one star, an offense that managed 38 points across its three biggest games, and the eighth-hardest schedule in the country. Every one of those is survivable on its own. Priced as the shortest ticket on the board, all five at once is a lot to ask.
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Shop the number before you commit
Championship futures vary meaningfully between books, and a half-point of price on a 6-to-1 shot is real money over a season. Compare where these markets are posted at our rundown of college football betting sites before you lock anything in.
So this is not a call that Ohio State is bad. Ohio State is going to be excellent. The narrower claim is about price: a 12-1 season that ends in a semifinal would be a fine year of football and a losing ticket, and there are six other teams at +1100 or shorter whose paths ask fewer questions. When the season starts, our daily betting picks will cover these matchups game by game, which is where the value tends to live anyway.
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Frequently Asked Questions
The questions readers keep sending in as the opener gets closer. Short answers below.
What are Ohio State’s odds to win the national championship this season?
Ohio State is +600 at DraftKings as of July 29, the shortest price on the board. Notre Dame is right behind at +650, then Texas and Oregon at +750, Indiana at +800, Georgia at +850 and Miami at +1100. A +600 ticket implies roughly a 14% chance before the book’s margin is removed. Futures move all season, so the number you see in August will not be the number you see in October.
If Ohio State is the favorite, why would I bet against them?
Because favorite and good value are different things. The Buckeyes lost three top-11 draft picks off the nation’s No. 1 defense, drew the eighth-toughest schedule by ESPN’s FPI, and have six other teams priced at +1100 or shorter chasing them. At +600 you need almost everything to break right. That is the argument, and it is about price rather than talent.
How many teams make the College Football Playoff in 2026?
Twelve, same as the last two seasons. Expansion talks stalled because the Big Ten wanted a 24-team field and the SEC wanted 16, so commissioners left the format alone for another year. That matters here because the 12-team bracket is exactly what ended Ohio State’s title defense last season, when No. 10 seed Miami beat them 24-14 in the Cotton Bowl quarterfinal.
Who did Ohio State actually lose off that defense?
The three best players on it. Edge rusher Arvell Reese went No. 5 overall to the Giants, linebacker Sonny Styles went No. 7 to the Commanders, and safety Caleb Downs went No. 11 to the Cowboys, with interior lineman Kayden McDonald also gone. That is one starter from every level of a unit that finished first nationally in total defense, scoring defense and pass defense. Coordinator Matt Patricia did stay, which is the one piece of good news.
Which game on Ohio State’s schedule should worry bettors most?
The trip to Texas on September 12, because of when it lands. Ohio State beat the Longhorns 14-7 in Columbus last August in a game that came down to defense, and this time the rematch is on the road in week two with a rebuilt front seven and a new secondary. Visiting Indiana and hosting Oregon are the other two games against top-five-priced opponents, but neither arrives before the defense has had time to settle.
