Assessing Ohio State football heading into the Spring

The Ohio State football team will start Spring practice in a couple of weeks. It will be the first time they can practice the new Chip Kelly offense. They will also have some new faces at important positions, none more so than Will Howard at quarterback. How his transition goes as the starter will determine how good this offense will be.

Now that we are so close to Spring practice, it’s time we take stock of the team. How good can this team be heading into next year with all of the pieces that they brought back from a year ago and brought in from the transfer portal and recruiting? On paper, they look pretty dang scary to the rest of the country.

What is the ceiling of this Ohio State football team?

The Buckeyes are going to be one of the favorites to win the Big Ten entering the season. While Michigan is the defending national champion, they lost too much from last year’s squad to defend. Washington, a new entrant into the Big Ten and Michigan’s opponent in the National Championship Game, also lost a lot of their best players.

Oregon is the biggest threat to the Buckeyes in the Big Ten. They too are national title contenders despite losing Bo Nix at quarterback. They just replace him with Dillion Gabriel, who has played a ton of football. Their offense is still going to be really good next season. Penn State will still be pretty good too, but they can’t seem to win big games.

This Ohio State football team is all in on 2024. All the moves they made in the transfer portal were to make a run at a national title this year. At the very least, they have to beat Michigan. Anything less will be a failure and should lead to the dismissal of Ryan Day. He knows that, and that’s why he’s made so many changes to his staff.

Spring practice brings a lot of hope for Buckeye fans. They should be hopeful this year. This team is a top-three team in the country.