Could Ohio State’s backups beat an average college football team?

A few days ago, our friends at SBNation.com wondered if Alabama’s backups could beat an average FBS program, specifically, Northern Illinois. After looking at the recruiting rankings and some of the general matchups, the author concluded that yeah, Alabama’s backups could probably win that game.

That’s not a shock, as Alabama has recruited better than anybody over the last few seasons, and their backups will still include multiple future NFL players. Only a few programs have recruited at anything close to Alabama’s clip, and without that deluge of elite talent, it’d be tough for even the backups of a good team to hang with a competent college squad.

But you know who else has recruited at nearly that elite of a level? Ohio State. Could the Buckeye Backups beat an average FBS team?

First, let’s take a guess at what an OSU backup starting lineup might look like:

This is just our projection. You could probably argue for a half dozen other blue-chip wideouts, and Dunn would probably split carries with true freshman Antonio Williams, but the general gist looks about right. This team would be exceptionally talented, with two five-star players, and several just below that level, but also very light on experience. The starting lineup would boast just two seniors, and only eight upperclassmen.

Finding a good team to compare them against seemed a bit tricky. We took a look at the programs who finished in the mid 60s range in the 2015 F/+ rankings, the teams projected to be a similar place for next season, and programs that recruited at an average level. Taking all of those into account, we settled on Illinois, a team that finished 65th last season, and projects to just be a bit worse than that this season.

What does their starting roster look like? We looked around the internet and came up with this guess (the official ones aren’t out yet), and cross checked it with their 247Sports Composite recruiting ranking. Here’s what we came up with:

Illinois’ roster has some talent, as it’s mostly three-star kids, but what really jumps out is the experience. There are only five underclassmen projected to start here, and they return a fair amount from a defense that finished in the top 20 last season in S&P+.

It seems like this would be a matchup of strength on strength. The Ohio State backup squad has an immensely talented defense, paced by a five-star talent on the defensive line, and linebackers who can do things like this. There might be a bit of concern about the secondary, but the pass rush and run stopping ability should be very solid.

There’s talent galore on offense, but also a ton of youth, even on the offensive line, along with a QB that’s never seen game action. Against such an experienced defense, even one that isn’t as talented, it’s reasonable to expect the Buckeyes to struggle a bit.

I have a hard time seeing Illinois scoring that much in this scenario either though. I imagine this would be a close game, decided by which team could generate the most big plays on offense, in leu of long, sustained drive. Tie goes to the side stocked with prospective NFL players. It’s also noting that one of these teams would be coached by one of the very best coaches in the country, and the other would be by Lovie Smith.

This is just a guess, and maybe a biased one, but if these two teams played on a neutral field, I’d take the Buckeyes by 3 or 4.

Are there "average" teams that could win this game? Sure. Northern Illinois nearly beat Ohio State’s starters last season, so it seems reasonable to think they would have beaten the backups. Arizona is projected to finish 64th in next year’s S&P+, and that would probably be a difficult matchup for this Ohio State team. Navy is 65th, and we’ve also already seen how close they can hang with Ohio State’s starters.

The talent disparity is pretty significant, as Ohio State’s backup squad would probably be the most talented team in the Big Ten after Michigan’s starters, but an experienced, well-coached team would certainly be able to take advantage of their youth to beat them, just like a less-talented team may end up being Ohio State’s starters this season.

But the fact that we can have this conversation with a straight face just goes to show how well this program has recruited recently. That’s going to put the Buckeyes in a position to win bigger games over the next few seasons. And it shows just how hard it is for a lot of the rest of college football to spring upsets against the elite of the elite in this sport.