'Stanford' Steve Coughlin expresses concern over Ohio State surpassing 10.5 wins in 2023

Ohio State is expected to be back in the College Football Playoff mix for the 2023 season, but some analysts aren’t convinced just yet.

ESPN’s ‘Stanford’ Steve Coughlin joined On3’s Andy Staples on the most recent episode of his podcast to provide a hot take on the Buckeyes’ strength of schedule for the upcoming season.

“There are a bunch of losable games there. Everybody wants to talk about the wide receiver room, I get it. They’re absolutely outstanding,” Coughlin told Staples. “The move for [Brian] Hartline to start making the calls now on offense and Ryan Day delegating that to him. I don’t worry about a quarterback in a Ryan Day offense because it’s so friendly and there are so many things built into it.

“But I do worry about the offensive line. When I think about the offensive line, you’ve got a road trip to South Bend (Notre Dame) — it’ll probably be like an Ohio State home game, but they’ll still be facing adversity. That’s a losable game.”

Coughlin spared no expenses toward the Buckeyes when he broke down the rest of Ohio State’s 2023 schedule. Alongside his take on the Notre Dame game — which is sure to get some Buckeye fans riled up — he also labeled the games at Wisconsin, against Penn State at home and of course the road trip against Michigan in the regular season finale as losable games as well.

“There’s a 10.5 [over/under win total] out there [in Vegas], but I don’t think Ohio State goes 11-1,” Coughlin said. “I think they lose multiple games. Who they’re to? I don’t know. But that’s a shot I would take on a high win total.”

ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg recently revealed his best and worst-case scenarios for the Buckeyes in 2023. The best, of course, is a CFP semifinal berth. Rittenberg agrees with his colleague that those four games could pose a threat to Ohio State, but also labeled Maryland and even Rutgers as potential dark horses to upset the Buckeyes.

Only time will tell if the Buckeyes, who are ranked No. 3 in the preseason AP Top 25 poll, succumb to their conference foes this season as Coughlin predicts, but all they can do is play the team across the line from them. They kick off the new season with an early Big Ten matchup against Indiana on Sept. 2, and are 28.5-point favorites over the Hoosiers, per Vegas Insider.