Urban Meyer predicts Ohio State to go under 10.5 wins in 2025

Ohio State enters the 2025 season fresh off its first national championship victory in a decade. Will they reach the college football mountaintop again at the end of the year, or will they fall short of that goal?

The Buckeyes have a win total projection of 10.5 wins for the upcoming college football season. After winning 14 this past year, as well as given the College Football Playoff’s expansion to 12 teams beginning last year, if they reach that treshold it should put them right back in contention for a consecutive championship.

Urban Meyer, the national championship-winning former Buckeyes head coach who won the first-ever CFP, believes Ohio State will reach that 10-win threshold during the regular season. Still, that means the Buckeyes would not surpass the regular season win total set in Vegas earlier this offseason.

“I think they’ve recruited at a whole different level than anyone else in college football, I think in the last 15-20 years,” Meyer told his co-hosts on The Triple Option podcast. “Well, I thought we always recruited good. But man, I see these rosters. My gosh, and what they’ve done. They had a good spring game. They love their quarterback [Julian] Sayin, the Alabama transfer.

“You have two new coordinators, Matt Patricia, which, that’s gonna be the biggest change, because I think Brian Hartline is just going to keep going along with the Chip Kelly-Ohio State-Ryan Day offense, so I got them at 10 wins.”

The group took a look at the Buckeyes’ upcoming schedule, which features a season-opening matchup against Texas at home, and vs. Penn State as what appear to be the toughest matchups fans will be able to watch inside Ohio Stadium. Road trips to Wisconsin and, of course, Michigan, could be tests for the Buckeyes down the stretch. Meyer made a bold declaration about these two of the road trips slated for 2025 as well.

“I look at their schedule — but at Wolverines, at Wisconsin, you know, I don’t think those are top 10 teams this year,” Meyer continued. “They’ve still got some rebuilding to do in Wisconsin. We saw them up close to the personal. That was a top five, top 10 team at one point. I think they’re going to get back at that point with Coach [Luke] Fickell. But the Wisconsin team we saw last year, that’s not that awful trip that it used to be going to Madison.”

For now, it appears that Meyer has faith that the Buckeyes will be back in the mix for a national championship this coming fall. That effort starts on Aug. 30 against the Longhorns at home.