Running It Back Is Never Easy

Winning a national championship in college football is difficult very difficult.

Winning them consecutively has been impossible for Ohio State, coming off the heels of the previous nine (this includes 2024-25) claimed national titles.

Ohio State has come close some seasons and has been a million miles away other seasons. Greats like Paul Brown, Woody Hayes, Jim Tressel and Urban Meyer have all come up short, for one reason or another.

There was no College Football Playoff in any of the previous attempts, and for several of the seasons, only one team from the Big Ten would go to a bowl game, any bowl game.

And forget about it if you went the year before and the ‘no repeat’ rule.

Football is a very different game, both on-and-off the field in 2025 than it was in 1943, let alone 2015. Has NIL and the transfer portal made more teams competitive, or has it just created a bigger divide between the haves and the have-nots?

From a 35,000-foot view, this may be Ohio State’s best chance to repeat in program history, even without a returning start quarterback, a majorly refreshed offensive and defensive line and two new coordinators serving under Ryan Day, just to name a few things.

We know that Ohio State is 0-8 in repeating as national champions, but where did each attempt come up short and are there any trends, while not useful, that are entertaining to look at as we are inside 100 days to the start of Ohio State’s title defense?

The Quick Hitters

• Ohio State is .500 against Michigan the year following up a national championship with a 4-4 record. No year will be any more costly than the 1969 season when the Ohio State ‘Super Sophs’ ran into a Michigan team that played well above its weight and ended Ohio State’s best opportunity to run it back. The Buckeyes would also go on to lose ‘The Game’ in 1971 and in 2003, with the significance of 2003 being that Jim Tressel didn’t drop this game all that often.
• Tripping up in the conference is a trend with only one attempt for the Buckeyes seeing the team go unbeaten in Big Ten play. That would be the 1955 season when Ohio State would wrap up an unbeaten Big Ten slate with a shutout of the team up north. It was OOC losses to Stanford and Duke, by a combined 12 points, that would keep Ohio State from having a shot to win it all again.
• Been there, done that. In two of the seasons (1969, 2015) the Buckeyes had a lot of players that had accomplished the goal of winning a title and nowhere to go. And by that, meaning the NFL was not an option with the core of each team going into their third college season, making these players not draft-eligible.
• Times have changed with Ohio State making or not making the playoff. With many of these seasons taking place before 1973, it was a dicey situation to make a bowl. Ohio State did make bowls in 2003 and 2015, but neither of them was directly for a national championship, be it BCS or whatever flavor of system was in place. If given an opportunity to play for it on the field in 1969 or even in 1955, could Ohio State have made a run with a playoff field? It is an interesting exercise, but something we can or cannot prove at this point.
• There is a familiar foil in Big Ten play, and it isn’t the team that you are thinking of. Northwestern, a team that only has 14 wins over Ohio State all-time, has four wins over Ohio State in the eight seasons we are highlighting, with a 4-3 record, even better than Michigan’s 4-4 record (Ohio State and Northwestern did not play in 2015. The Wildcats are not on the regular season schedule for 2025, and it seems highly unlikely these two teams would face off in any sort of postseason capacity.

USC is the team to benefit the most with Ohio State’s inability to string together back-to-back championships, winning two (1962, 2003) in years where Ohio State entered the season as the defending champs. No other Big Ten team was able to capitalize on Ohio State’s tripping up (basing this off either AP or BCS/CFP championships).

is everyone doing it?

If it were easy, everyone would be doing it and you are hard pressed to find Big Ten National Championships in football in the modern era and while some people will point to 1965 and 1966 for Michigan State, the 1965 championship for Michigan State (while still claimed) does not fit our criteria, with Alabama winning the AP title.

The AP didn’t award its first National Champion until the 1936 season, meaning that there was a myriad of alphabet organizations running rogue and naming champions.

Minnesota claims titles in 1934, 1935 and 1936. With the Gophers going 23-1 in that three-year window, who are we to deny them their claim, even if the 1936 championship was the only one bestowed by the AP.

Michigan is going to claim titles for the consecutive years of 1947 and 1948, as well as 1932 and 1933. The 30s, as we said before, are murky. 1948 saw that team win an AP title, but 1947 saw the championship go to Notre Dame, at least according to the AP.

checking the boxes

We round this out with a couple of final thoughts looking at the last handful of teams to go back-to-back. That would include Georgia (2021, 2022), Alabama (2011, 2012) and Nebraska (1994, 1995).

The Huskers were the only team to do this with two different quarterbacks, Brooks Berringer and Tommie Frazier, but Frazier dealt with a blood clot that cost him most of a season and then of course we lost Berringer way too young in a 1996 plane crash that took his life shortly after the conclusion of his college career.

UGA and Bama did it with the same QB at the helm in each season, Stetson Bennett for the Bulldogs and AJ McCarron for the Tide. Two players who excelled in college and went full-on witness protection program in the NFL.

Neither player was a liability to their team and let’s be honest, despite the likes of Brock Bowers and Amari Cooper catching passes for their respective teams, we look back at the past two repeat champions as defensive teams.

Ohio State is going to have to roll out a new quarterback regardless with Will Howard off to the NFL. But this Ohio State team is going to have a strong defensive DNA, even with a new DC and a largely new defensive line.

I am not declaring that this team will absolutely repeat as champions, there is even a good amount of luck when you look at the big picture. Team health (your team and your foes), maintained focus and just what happens around you are all part of the formula, even if not the main variables that you focus on.

The 2021 and 2022 UGA teams were not devastating run teams, but neither were they devastating passing teams. Bama was a little different with a back going for almost 1,700 yards in 2011 and two backs for 1,100-plus yards in 2012.

The Nebraska teams are 30 years out and it is hard to quantify how those numbers translate to modern football.

conclusions

The opportunity is there for the Buckeyes. The sportsbooks believe so with Ohio State the clubhouse leader to win the title according to DraftKings at +500 (a $100 bet would return the original $100 bet along with $500 in payout), slightly better than Texas, Georgia and Penn State.

Ohio State’s flaws are obvious but are they really that egregious? Georgia is starting a new quarterback. Texas is largely starting afresh after the departure of Quinn Ewers and while Arch Manning has played a fair amount, he has not been ‘the guy’. Penn State has a returning starter in Drew Allar, but is the hype around Allar based on results or longevity?

No team is happy on June 1^st with its line play (either side) or much of anything. That may not be the public messaging, but it is just a reality.

Where are the obvious red flags for Ohio State? Yes, the schedule is tough, yes the regular season finale has been subpar for a couple of seasons, yes many of the most recognizable names from the team are off to the NFL.

But then there is Jeremiah Smith. And Caleb Downs. And the beat goes on.

We don’t have enough data points on the expanded College Football Playoff to really have a wide sample of how seeding plays a role in things. We do know that a No. 8 won it last season. It seems highly improbable that Ohio State is any lower than an eight this season, right?

All it takes is an opportunity. And Ohio State should have it.

It has had them several times before and come up short. This year feels different.

Less than 100 days to go to put-up or shut up against Texas.

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