My annual schedule rant:
There were two major problems with Ohio State's schedule in 2023/24: First, it was too weak. The Buckeyes ended up with the #43 SoS per KenPom. By comparison, UW was #3, PU was #4, MSU was #12, IA was #16. Second, attendance particularly at the buy games was pathetic.
The 2023/24 Ohio State schedule consisted of:
- 1 home game as part of a MTE (vs WMU)
- 1 1/2 of a H&H (vs aTm, tOSU goes to aTm in 2024/25)
- 2 neutral site MTE games (vs Bama, vs Santa Clara)
- 2 neutral site games (vs UCLA in ATL, vs WVU in CLE)
- 5 home buy games (Oakland, Merrimak, CMU, Miami-OH, NOLA)
A not totally unreasonable proposal:
- 3 games for MTE (this is no change)
- 3 halves of H&H (alternating between 1&2 at home, this is up by 2)
- 1 neutral site game (this is down by 1)
- 4 "Ohio" games. (these replace the 5 buy games)
The Ohio Games would be against the six Ohio MAC teams plus Cleveland State and Dayton. The offer to them would be simply that Ohio State will play four of them per year with every eighth game being on the road. Thus, over a period of 16 years tOSU would host each of the eight teams seven times and visit each of the eight teams once.
In a two year cycle the Buckeyes would play:
- 20 B1G home games - 10 per year
- 20 B1G road games - 10 per year
- 7 Ohio home games - alternates between 3 and 4 per year*
- 6 MTE games - 3 per year
- 3 home halves of H&H series - alternates between 1 and 2 per year*
- 3 road halves of H&H series - alternates between 1 and 2 per year*
- 2 neutral site games - 1 per year
- 1 Ohio road game - alternates between 0 and 1 per year*
*The alternating series would be arranged such that:
- In years when tOSU had 2 home and 1 road from the H&H's, they would play 3 home and 1 road "Ohio" games
- In years when tOSU had 1 home and 2 road from the H&H's, they would play 4 home "Ohio" games
Thus, Ohio State would always have 15 home games consisting of:
- 10 league games
- 1 home half of an H&H
- 4 consisting either of 1 additional home half of an H2H and 3 "Ohio" games or 4 "Ohio" games
Then they would always play 12 road games consisting of:
- 10 league games
- 1 road half of an H&H
- 1 either an additional road half of an H&H or an "Ohio" road game
Then they would have four neutral site games:
- 3 MTE games (these might sometimes (as in 2023) include a home game)
- 1 one-off neutral site game