Throughout the year, we will be asking and answering questions about various Ohio State teams, the players, and anything else on our collective minds of varying degrees of importance. If you have a question that you would like to ask, you can tweet us @LandGrant33 or if you need more than 280 characters, send an email HERE.
Finally, friends, we have survived the torturous off-season and have arrived smack dab in the middle of the first game week of the 2025-26 college football season. As more and more of the fandom’s
collective attention turns to Texas, we wanted to get Buckeye Nation’s thoughts on the season-opening No. 1 vs. No. 3 matchup.
So, we have two questions for you, Buckeye fans. The first is what you think will swing the game in OSU’s favor (since we aren’t really even entertaining the possibility of a Buckeye loss). The other question will essentially be the same for every fan survey we do this entire year. We want you to pick the winner and give us the scoring margin.
So get a few more details about the questions below, and then head down to the survey at the bottom of the article. Finally, if you want to either defend your pick or write in your own response that we didn’t include, feel free to drop it in the comments at the bottom of the page.
Question 1: What will be the biggest X-factor in Ohio State beating Texas?
I know that the national media is all aflutter over all of the players that OSU lost to the NFL Draft and how much worse the team will have to be because they clearly could never replace all of those top-flight talents. But call me crazy, I feel like the Buckeyes are probably going to be just fine.
Will they win on Saturday? I think so, but who can say for sure? Nonetheless, until proven wrong, I am going to be operating under the assumption that Texas is — yet again — overhyped and Ohio State is — yet again — undervalued. So, there are myriad different reasons that the Buckeyes could win Saturday’s season opener, from Julian Sayin balling out in his first career start to Max Klare ushering in the #YearOfTheTightEnd to Arch Manning not being able to handle the Buckeye pass rush and more.
But you tell me, which one of the options do you think is most likely to lead to a W for the Buckeyes?
Question 2: What will the margin of victory be in Saturday’s game against Texas?
Come Saturday, it will have been 232 days since Ohio State beat Texas 28-14 in the Cotton Bowl to earn a spot in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game. A lot has changed for both teams in the intervening seven-and-a-half months. Nonetheless, the Buckeyes opened the week as 2.5-point favorites over the Longhorns, and the gold standard college football analytics system SP+ has OSU favored to win by a score of 27-20.
I, of course, reserve the right to modify my pick up until our official predictions article is posted on Saturday morning, but currently, I am feeling good about a 31-20 Buckeye victory. Is that just my scarlet-and-gray-colored glasses, or does that seem reasonable? Head down to the survey and let me know.
Throughout the year, we ask questions of the most plugged-in Ohio State fans and fans across the country. Sign up here to participate in the weekly emailed surveys.
