Cardale Jones and Ohio State handled Virginia Tech on Sept. 7 and is the heavy favorite to romp through the Big Ten. But how would Jones and Co. do in the other Power 5 conferences? Ohio State earned every first-place vote in the AP top 25 poll and stands atop the rankings of pretty much every human and computer power-rating system. And why not? In the season opener against Virginia Tech, the defending national champion racked up 10 plays that gained at least 20 yards and allowed only three such plays. Expect even more of that kind of lopsided production throughout the season. According to ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI), Ohio State is expected to have at least a 91 percent likelihood of victory against its next nine opponents, and at least a 79 percent likelihood of victory against the remaining two teams on its regular-season schedule. But how would the Buckeyes do in the other Power 5 conferences? Well, they wouldn’t be as dominant, that’s for sure. We ran a simulation that swapped the Buckeyes’ schedule with those of the top teams in each of the other major conferences and found that all of them would be more challenging to run the table against than what the Big Ten has in store. According to our methodology, Ohio State currently projects to win an average of 11.6 regular-season games in the Big Ten…
Continue Reading: Football Outsiders: Would Ohio State go unbeaten in the SEC or Pac-12?
