Our look at Ohio State's upcoming opponents for 2018 enters the stretch run as the calendar shifts to November and championships are won or lost in the final month of the regular season.

The Nebraska Cornhuskers are Ohio State's first foe for the new month and the Buckeyes as they make their way to Columbus after the Buckeyes went to Lincoln (Neb.) and throttled them 56-14 in a game that really was not even that close.

J.T. Barrett threw for 325 yards while J.K. Dobbins had 106 yards and a score on 12 carries while Mike Weber chipped in 82 yards of his own on 18 carries. Ohio State opened up a 42-0 lead before Nebraska would get on the board and just to add insult to injury to the home team, fans would grow tired of holding on to their red balloons, a tradition that sees the fans release them on Nebraska's first touchdown, and eventually releasing them upon gaining a first down against an Ohio State defense that would not allow much of anything for most of the game.

Nebraska (4-8, 3-6) came into the year off of 9-4 record from just a year before and finished tied for second with Iowa in the Big Ten West. There were a lot of high hopes that 2017 might be the year that Huskers could turn the corner and really compete for Big Ten titles and more.

Those high hopes were immediately tempered however as the Huskers would go 1-2 in non-conference play and even struggle in their win over Arkansas State, a team that would finish 7-5 in the Sun Belt.

The team would travel to Eugene (Ore.) and spot the Oregon Ducks a 42-14 halftime lead and would close the game with three straight touchdowns to make the score closer at 42-35 but did also show that this team was vulnerable on the defensive side of the ball.

Alarm bells sounded when the Huskers lost at home to Northern Illinois after giving up a 4th quarter touchdown to the Huskies and despite having half the quarter left to try and get back on top, the Huskers would come up empty turning the ball over on downs and then throwing an interception to seal their fate.

The wins were few and far between in league play. Nebraska would run off two straight wins to start Big Ten play against Rutgers and Illinois but that would be Nebraska's only two-game winning streak of any nature over the year.

Nebraska would lose back-to-back home games to Wisconsin and Ohio State before pulling out a last-minute win over Purdue where Tanner Lee would find Stanley Morgan Jr. with 14 seconds to go for the game winning score.

That would be the last time that the Huskers would taste success for the year. A 31-24 overtime loss to Northwestern would kick off a four-game losing streak that would see losses to Minnesota, Penn State and Iowa to wrap up the year.

The 4-8 season would end the Mike Riley-era at Nebraska and the team would go to a former player with Scott Frost coming in after a successful run at Central Florida and an undefeated season.

Nebraska will be looking for a new quarterback with the departure of Tanner Lee. He was supposed to be the answer after the long-criticized Tommy Armstrong left the program, but Lee found just as much of the fan ire coming his way as his predecessor. Lee did end his final season with 23 passing touchdowns but will be forever remembered for his 16 interceptions. Lee had one year left of eligibility but decided it was time to move on and give the NFL a shot.

The defensive secondary will have to replace a couple of names with Joshua Kalu and Chris Jones both moving on. Neither player made it through the whole season healthy with Kalu playing in nine games and Jones playing in seven, but each played key roles for their team's defense when they were in there.

Offensive tackle Nick Gates is not going to be a first day player in the upcoming draft and may slide to the third day (rounds 4-7) but whenever a team loses an offensive tackle, especially a left tackle, that is a key departure.

Scott Frost knows how to put offenses together and he will have plenty of returning players looking to make their impact in what hopes to be a more dynamic system than what has been run over the past couple of seasons. Stanley Morgan and JD Spielman were one-two on the Huskers' offense in receiving yards with more than 1,800 yards combined and 12 scores.

Nebraska also brings back its two leading rushers with Devine Ozigbo and Mikale Wilbon both having one year of eligibility left. Last season, the Huskers just seemed to struggle to identify who was a primary ball carrier and that might be something that Frost and his staff needs to look at this year. The two players combined for more than 215 carries and just shy of 900 yards and nine scores. Someone is going to need to step into that main running back role.

One of the biggest issues that the Huskers had last year is there were not any highly recognizable names on defense. There were plenty of players who made significant contributions, but casual fans would have struggled to name three, let alone one, members of the Nebraska starting defense. Linebacker Dedrick Young was the team's second-leading tackler and defensive end Carlos Davis started 12 games and was second on the team in sacks.

Can Scott Frost run his offense with his current roster of players or are they a couple of recruiting cycles away?

This type of question always looks like a slight of the current personnel, but the fact of the matter is that this roster is molded in the shape of what Mike Riley wanted the offensive personnel to look like. Yes, Nebraska is a much bigger name on the national landscape than UCF could ever be, regardless of how many undefeated seasons the Golden Knights put up in the American Athletic Conference.

People will debate if the UCF roster at this point is more talented than the Cornhuskers roster, but what is not up for debate is that Frost had the key players at the key positions to do what he wanted on offense. That is not always an easy transition in year one for a coach to take a player who is built for one style of play and try and get him to do something that, while still being football, may be somewhat foreign to him.

The Huskers did close with the nation's No. 21 recruiting class in 2018 but it may be a lot to ask a bunch of first-year players to jump in and compete in the Big Ten. That also would not necessarily be great for a locker room to do that at too high of a percentage of passing up on older players. It will be an interesting watch over in Lincoln (Neb.) to see how this is handled.

Will Scott Frost's offense work in the Big Ten?

We have seen coaches come into the league like Joe Tiller (Purdue) and be able to install things they have done at previous stops and it works and eventually becomes the norm. We have seen coaches like Rich Rodriguez (Michigan) come in with what was a successful system at WVU have zero success in the Big Ten.

Where will Frost's vision land?

Prevailing wisdom says it will be much closer to Tiller on the spectrum than Rich Rod, but there will be a learning curve.

When Urban Meyer walked in the door at Ohio State, he did not pick up the Florida playbook and just cross out the numbers in blue and orange and replace them with numbers in scarlet and gray. He had powerful running backs, backs that he had not had at previous stops, his offense had to change, even evolve, with the personnel that he had.

Fans of the Huskers will be demanding immediate change and no fan ever is really good with 8-4 seasons, but the smart fans will know that this kind of change in system will not be an overnight thing but with that being said, this offense should take a significant step forward in 2018.

What about defense?

Nebraska offense this. Nebraska offense that. What about the defense? It was not very good last year. The Huskers were No. 100 in total defense, No. 114 against the run and No. 95 in team passing efficiency defense.

UCF was not exactly setting the world on fire last year on defense at No. 93 in total defense. The numbers were not as bad across the board and UCF was No. 2 in turnover margin. But defense is going to be something that will need to be put in focus.

The Big Ten is never going to be the Pac-12 or Big 12 in terms of putting up points and more points but if the Nebraska defense does not get considerably better, there may not be enough offense out there for Scott Frost's team to put up to outscore more established teams within their own systems.

It used to be that a new head coach would get three full seasons before the seat would even start to get warm under him. Those days are gone. Frost will get a little more latitude being a former Nebraska player but that does not make him immune to the calls of the radical fringe.

Fortunately for Frost, Nebraska has a very winnable non-conference schedule with Akron, Colorado and Troy all coming to Lincoln (Neb.). Troy is coming off of an 11-2 season and a New Orleans Bowl win over North Texas. A 3-0 start for 2018 would be nice but even 2-1 would be an improvement over last year.

Things will get serious in a hurry for the Huskers as three of their first four league games are on the road including Michigan and Wisconsin on the schedule. The schedule maker did the Huskers no favors with Northwestern, Ohio State and Iowa also joining the road schedule. It could be a rough run on the road. At home the Huskers draw Purdue, Minnesota, Illinois and Michigan State.

So, what does this mean for a final record? The high end, everything going right may cap out at 8-4 this year and the low end may be around 5-7. One way or the other, barring something catastrophic happening, the team should make some significant progress from the 2017 season, but this is going to be a work in progress and not just a one-year overhaul.

Way too early score prediction: Ohio State 45 Nebraska 20