A History Lesson: Buckeyes In Champ Games

Once upon a time the national champion was determined just as much by a group of voters as it was on the field.

Go out and win your final game of the season, the bowl game, and then wait and see what either the AP voters, or the UPI voters, or some other governing body would come up with and get the trophy shipped in the mail to you.

Many years, there would be multiple national champions. That still is not something that is ancient history when Central Florida declared itself champions in 2017 when everyone else felt it was Alabama.

As recently as 1960, there were four recognized claims to the national championship with Iowa, Minnesota, Ole Miss and Washington all trying to stake a claim, with no true unbeaten left standing.

That all changed in 1998 when the BCS replaced the Bowl Alliance, which replaced the Bowl Coalition, and we got a true national championship game.

The advent of the BCS didn’t remove the controversy, but it did close most of the avenues for a split championship and set up a true national championship game.

The BCS would give way to the College Football Playoff for the 2014 season, but only the selection criteria and number of teams involved change, the championship game was here to stay.

Ohio State has appeared in the “national championship game” five previous times and holds a 2-3 record on those games with next week’s game giving the program a chance to even up the series and claim its third title in the past 25 years.

The previous five trips to the game have had their moments of highpoints as well as low points.

As we are just a little more than a week out from this big game against Notre Dame in Atlanta, let’s take a quick look back at some of the performances in the previous five trips.  

The Scores

Okay, just going to throw this out there, Ohio State has been outscored by 40 points if you totaled up all the previous scores.

That is what happens when Alabama puts up 52 against you during the COVID year and Urban Meyer, not yet wearing the Scarlet and Gray, ambushes you.

It has long been said that you must bring an offense into the championship game to win it. Just in Ohio State’s five appearances, the winning team has scored and average of 40.8 points.

That is still on par with both the CFP in general (41.8 PPG) and the while the BCS-era checked in lower at just 32.9 PPG, it is represented a higher score than most average football games of its era.

The Passers

You go and think about some of the quarterbacking names for Ohio State over the past 25 years and some of the best to do it never made it to a National Championship Game while some that often are forgotten did.

Cardale Jones made his name by his play for three games at the end of the 2014 season and his legacy was cemented, as was a player like Craig Krenzel.

On the other side, Todd Boeckman is not a daily name in Ohio State sports conversation, but if his team would have won the title, you better believe that it would be.

We have seen a seismic shift in how the game is played and called over the span of time throughout the entire sport. 300-yard games were events to be celebrated, not just a footnote as for how many times within a season it occurred.

Let’s not forget that Krenzel was just a “game manager” for the Buckeyes, which really was just code for “competent to not throw a game away but not all that flashy” and that is what the Buckeye got in his 7-21, 122 yards with two touchdowns and an interception outing against the bigger, badder Hurricanes of Miami.

The Buckeyes brought the Heisman Trophy winner into the game against Florida but when Ted Ginn, Jr. was injured on the opening kickoff, things fell apart quickly as Smith would go just 4-14 for 35 yards and an interception.

Ohio State would return to the BCS Championship Game the following year with Boeckman and Ohio State came out swinging but couldn’t hold off LSU while playing in New Orleans. Boeckman would go 15-26 for 208 yards with two touchdowns and two picks.

Jones holds the mark for the best night for an Ohio State quarterback in this type of setting, but it was not a clean night, he would go 16-23 for 242 yards with a touchdown and an interception. If Ohio State would have not been minus-four in the turnovers, what could have been in terms of an assault on the record books versus the Ducks.

Finally, 2020 saw Ohio State navigate a COVID season, players played one week and then didn’t play for several as the B1G had some of the strictest testing, certainly more strict than the SEC. A depleted Ohio State team became more depleted when Trey Sermon was hurt on the opening series and Ohio State would struggle despite having Justin Fields. The OSU QB would go 17-33 for 194 yards and a touchdown pass.

The Runners

I should just call this the Zeke Elliott section, but Ohio State still is going to have great backs in just about every game, even with the Sermon injury in 2020. It opened the door for Master Teague to have a big night, but the Buckeyes would have been better with a one-two punch rather than just a two punch in that game.

Krenzel was Ohio State’s leading rusher versus Miami in 2002, even with it being the Maurice Clarett team. Krenzel would get abused on 19 carries for 81 yards and two scores. Clarett would also run, while injured for virtually the entire game 23 times for 47 yards and two scores.

Antonio Pittman led the way in 2006, and while little went right, he did find the end zone once with 10 carries for 62 yards.

Beanie Wells should have had a bigger game until Ohio State fell behind a couple of scores and Ohio State had to move largely to the pass. He would carry the ball 20 times for 146 yards and a score and LSU had few answers for him at the time.

Okay, Zeke is going to do Zeke things, and he played at his future home to the tune of 36 carries for 246 yards and four scores.

Finally, we already talked about Sermon and Teague, with Teague going 15 carries for 65 yards and two scores.

The Receivers

With some inconsistent passing numbers, that doesn’t bode well for a lot of being receiving games.

There were still plenty of names who would go on and pick up Sunday checks in the NFL, but we never really saw a Devonta Smith type of game in Ohio State’s favor.

The 2002 game saw Michael Jenkins grab four passes for 45 yards while Chris Gamble would have two receptions, and Chris Vance would have one.

2006 only had four completed passes, so the pickings were slim, Anthony Gonzalez had two of them for 11 yards. Current Ohio State WR coach Brian Hartline had one along with Antonio Pittman.

2007 saw a more open offense, even if things didn’t end up well. Hartline would lead the way with six receptions for 75 yards and a score while Brian Robiskie had five receptions for 50 yards and a score.

With Zeke leading the scoring in 2014, there wasn’t a lot left via the air, Jalin Marshall had five receptions for 52 yards and Michael Thomas had four grabs for 53 yards.

Finally, the 2020 game saw a talented receiving duo, even if the outcome was not great. Chris Olave had eight grabs for 69 yards while Garrett Wilson had three for 50 yards.

The Defenders

I am going to preface this by saying that the great play that MC-13 made against Miami as an offensive player doesn’t really count in the totals that I have here, but it was too great of a play not to mention.

The names from the 2002 game are some classics with Matt Wilhelm leading the way with 10 tackles, three for loss and a PBU. Mike Doss had nine tackles, half a tackle for loss, an interception and a PBU. Will Smith had eight tackles for loss, two for loss and a sack and Kenny Peterson had two sacks as part of his night.

The 2006 game has all sorts of intrigue based on the names I am about to mention. Current Ohio State linebackers coach James Laurinaitis led the way with 15 tackles and a PBU while current Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman had 15 tackles of his own.

The tandem led the way the following year with Laurinaitis putting up 18 tackles (a total of 33 between the two years) and Freeman having 14 tackles (totaling 29 tackles) and forcing a fumble.

The 2014 game will be remembered more for the offense than anything else, but Tyvis Powell had 9 tackles with Darron Lee right there at eight.

And finally, Ohio State really ran into a buzzsaw against Bama in 2020, Tuf Borland had a rough night but still led the team with 14 tackles while Pete Werner had eight, as did Justin Hilliard, who also added in two tackles for loss.

Go to discussion...