During the 2025 offseason, Jeremiyah Love was deemed a talented running back who wouldn’t be worth a first-round pick because of his lack of volume. Well, after the Week 1 loss to Miami, Love became not only the best player on the team but the focal point of the offense. He had 189 rushing attempts (17.2 per game) to go with 23 receptions (1.92) from there on out. If you want to extend the situation to his final 10 games (after they started 0-2), then you’d still see an increase in volume for Love compared to previous years (16.6 rushing attempts and 1.9 receptions per game). Looking at his 2024 season, this is a major uptick in usage. During that season, he averaged 11.4 rushing attempts and 1.83 receptions per game.
This all happened because of two early losses and Notre Dame’s need to win out. There are teams we all assume will be in playoff contention every year, but what if they lose early? Will the schedule pose enough of a threat that they can’t coast through the rest of the season? Let’s dig into the LOVE Index and see where certain players fall on the scale. But first, let’s discuss scoring.
0-25 points will be assigned to each of the following:
Losses and Playoff Vulnerability – Likelihood of their team losing an early game
Offensive Consolidation – When the going gets tough, how heavily is this player relied upon?
Volume Delta – The gap between their “coasting” volume and “desperation” volume
Elimination Window – How early and often a team faces an opponent that could ruin their playoff chances
Bo Jackson, Ohio State, RB
Early hypotheses have Jackson as the highest-scoring player on the LOVE Index, and with good reason. Ohio State has nuked their plays per game over the years, really limiting the number of snaps they run each week. They’ve also played a fairly soft schedule and had so many weapons on the field at all times that one player was never heavily needed. Things change in 2026, though.
Losses and Playoff Vulnerability
Jackson scores a 23 out of 25 here, thanks to an early matchup at Texas, where betting lines have them as a 1.5-2.5 point favorite. Texas should be loaded in 2026, and a Week 2 game on the road poses a significant threat to the Ohio State Buckeyes. There are no other early matchups that pose a threat, but Texas is big, and the fact that it’s on the road has to have Buckeyes fans nervous about that early matchup.
Offensive Consolidation
Most years, we’d say that we don’t have an idea of how big a role this RB1 role could really have when things get tough. The final three games of the 2025 season, though, give us a good, albeit small, sample size to look at. In those three games, Jackson saw 50 out of 97 team rushing attempts (52% rush share). He also added six targets in those games, giving him a total of 56 touches. This is a pretty significant number when looking at those games against Michigan and Indiana in the B1G, and the playoff matchup against Miami. The Buckeyes needed wins, and they looked to Jackson, even as a true freshman, to help them get there.
The Buckeyes lost a good bit of offensive production and didn’t do much to replace it. Carnell Tate is out, and now we’ll likely see Devin McCuin (UTSA transfer), Brandon Inniss, or Chris Henry Jr. (true freshman) step up for that WR2 role. No doubt that Jeremiah Smith is still there, but the passing game looks bleak for anyone thinking they may lean on the passing game. On the ground, CJ Donaldson and James Peoples are both out of Columbus, which is a loss of 157 rushing attempts and 13 touchdowns.
Those rushing snaps are potentially going to be replaced by Ja’Kobi Jackson, Isaiah West, and Legend Bey. That isn’t exactly a who’s who of options behind Bo Jackson. As a result, he’ll receive a score of 20 out of 25.
Volume Delta
If things don’t break our way as fantasy players, there could be a sizable gap between what we see after a win over Texas versus a loss to the Longhorns. It’s hard to truly know what Jackson would have seen last season in the month of November, but a little bit of an injury plus his inexperience probably had an impact to some degree. With that said, he saw 13, 14, 15, and 19 rushing attempts against Penn State, Purdue, UCLA, and Rutgers. All four of those games were in hand moderately early, with the average margin of victory just under 30 points. He also added just two receptions during that span. There’s a significant delta here; thus, Jackson earns just 14 of the 25 available points.
Elimination Window
In an era where typical contenders are avoiding any non-conference team with a pulse, you have to give Ohio State some credit for having Texas on the schedule. Ball State and Kent State round out their non-conference schedules, making a 2-1 start the absolute worst-case scenario. The first half of the season really isn’t too difficult otherwise, with a trip to Iowa City, Iowa, to play the Hawkeyes being the only other “tough” matchup. They should do just fine, though.
What comes in the second half of the season, though, is a much different story. In Week 7, they travel to Indiana for a rematch of the Big Ten Championship from 2025. In Week 9, they travel to Los Angeles for a matchup with USC, followed by a home matchup against Oregon. Two easy weeks against Northwestern and Nebraska lead them to the finale, Michigan at home.
Now, three losses with this schedule likely get Ohio State in the playoff, but didn’t many say the same thing about Notre Dame and two losses? If Ohio State loses to Texas, Indiana, and Oregon, then their big wins would be USC on the road and Michigan at home. Those are good wins, but it doesn’t exactly put them in the driver’s seat at 9-3 to end the season.
Give Jackson 18 points here for the schedule’s toughness, with most of it coming in the second half of the season.
Total Score: 75
Standings
1. Bo Jackson – 75
Scoring Explained:
85-100 = The Jeremiyah Love Tier – Elite ceiling disguised by low offseason volume projections.
70-84 = High Leverage – Safe baseline volume with big upside if an early loss occurs.
50-69 = Script Dependent – Talented player held back by a weak schedule/coaching style.
0-50 = Static Volume – Safe player that has capped upside. What you see is what you get.
