Greg McElroy questions if Buckeyes are for real: 'Ohio State is yet to be challenged'

Greg McElroy still has questions about Ohio State. During a Tueday appearance on SportsCenter, the ESPN analyst named Ohio State the team he wants to learn the most about in the upcoming month.

“Ohio State is yet to be challenged,” McElroy said. “They’ve played, I think, one of the weakest schedules in college football up to this point. Yes, beating a conference foe like Michigan State on the road is nothing to shake your head at.

“But still, we’re talking about a team that has national championship aspirations, and there is nobody that they’ve seen up to this point that has challenged them whatsoever, and there might not be anybody that challenges them the rest of the way. They might go to Oregon and handle them, and then we can draw conclusions about what the Buckeyes are.”

Ohio State hasn’t faced a ranked opponent yet this season. In turn, they haven’t shown what they’re capable of in a competitive game. No team has come within 30 points of the Buckeyes this season.

In October, fans around the nation will finally get a chance to see how Ohio State performs against quality competition. On Oct. 5, the Buckeyes will square off against the Iowa Hawkeyes, who are always a challenge due to their lockdown defense.

Then, Ohio State will take on perhaps their most dangerous regular-season threat, No. 6 Oregon. If the Buckeyes can survive against the Ducks, they will go head-to-head against a budding Nebraska squad. In short, Ohio State has a busy month ahead.

While McElroy isn’t sold yet on OSU, he certainly wants to believe.

“I wanted to go in a different direction here because I think Ohio State’s for real,” McElroy said. “I look at their personnel and the weapons that they have, and the freshmen and Jeremiah Smith, the tandem that they have at running back — I think they’re for real based on their talent.

“But I also thought maybe Ole Miss was for real, and then they played somebody with a heartbeat and found out real quick that they’re not quite as good as we anticipated.”

Ole Miss and Ohio State had similar starts to the season, with each team strolling through the first four weeks of the season. Yet, when Ole Miss ran into Kentucky, it fell in upset fashion. McElroy wonders if Ohio State will fall victim to the same fate this month.