Ohio State's Sustained Excellence Is Underappreciated

Author's note: I originally wrote this in December 2008 for my sports blog "A Few Rows Up ." Several times, recently, I thought about writing something new along these same lines, but realized it would simply be a reiteration of this piece. So I post it again as it was written then. The skepticism spoken of in this article exists still in the minds of many college football fans and members of the media.

December 19, 2008 —An article in today's Cleveland Plain Dealer pointed out the apparent ongoing resentment directed at the Ohio State Buckeyes football team, mostly by the media, but also by college football fans around the country.

I don’t get that.

The rationale is the Buckeyes are typically overrated. They beat fair to average teams. They lose to top-tier teams. And so on, and so forth, blah, blah, blah.

Except, dear critics, answer me this: Other than USC, which has far outpaced any college program for the last decade, name me a school that has consistently outperformed Ohio State in recent years.

You can’t, because there isn’t one.

Remember when all this overrated talk started, back when, somehow, the Buckeyes topped the darling Miami Hurricanes to win the national championship? That was at the 2002 Fiesta Bowl, and I guess the nerve of Ohio State to actually topple “The U” was more than the whiners could take. Since then, the Buckeyes have been the target of the college football world’s wrath.

OK, let’s look at where things stand.

Here are Ohio State’s final BCS rankings for the last seven years, beginning with 2001, the year they went on to win the national title: two, five, 25, four, one, one, 10. Six out of those seven years, it was ranked in the Top 10, and its only slip was the 25th-place ranking in 2004.

Skipping over USC for the moment, the only other team who can boast similar numbers for the past seven years is Oklahoma: seven-one-two-23-four-one. The Sooners, like the Buckeyes, slipped to 23 one year, but have remained in the Top 10 otherwise, including two number one rankings—just like Ohio State.

That’s it.

For the past seven years, USC, Ohio State, and Oklahoma have been the most consistently high-performing teams in the nation.

Florida won a title two years ago, and is back in the championship game this season, but the Gators finished out of the Top 10 five of the past seven years. LSU, mighty winners a year ago, didn’t even make the top 25 this year, and was nowhere to be found in the Top 10 four of the last seven seasons.

Miami, Michigan, and Notre Dame? O, how the mighty have fallen. Georgia? Not bad, but its best finish, third, came seven years ago. Texas was strong this year, and won the championship three years ago with Vince Young, but followed that up with two 19th-place finishes in a row. They’re similar to Georgia—strong, but not consistently elite.

Oregon? Oregon State? Auburn? Tennessee? Please.

Which brings us back to our point. Yes, the Buckeyes were a disappointment in two consecutive national championship games. You can’t change that. The games were embarrassing, but they didn’t negate the fact that Ohio State was there, or that it has been at or near the top for this entire decade.

The fact is, Jim Tressel has run a superb program during his eight years at the helm, and is one of the top college coaches in the land. His game plans against Florida and LSU in the last two national championship games left much to be desired, but his overall record of 83-18 at Ohio State speaks for itself—including four Big Ten championships and a 7-1 record against archrival Michigan, which elevates him to near god-like status among the Buckeye faithful.

Everyone’s entitled to his or her opinion, but the notion that the Ohio State Buckeyes are consistently overrated is ignorant of the facts, plain and simple.

Postscript: A year later, if I were to take back anything, it would be the comment that Texas has not been consistently elite. They climbed back to No. 2 and a spot in the national championship game this year, and Mack Brown's winning percentage at Texas over the past nine years (.797) is comparable to Tressel's (.816). They dropped out of the Top 10 here and there, but they've consistently been winners.

Alabama, this year's No. 1, had fallen far from grace and far out of the BCS standings prior to 2008. And No. 7 Oregon, Ohio State's worthy opponent in the Rose Bowl this New Year's Day, could only manage one other Top 10 ranking during the last eight years that the Buckeyes have been at or near the top.

Ohio State, at No. 8, finished in the Top 10 again this season and is playing in yet another BCS bowl game. The legacy of excellence fashioned by Jim Tressel continues. In the nine years since taking over at Ohio State, Tressel's 93-21 mark is second only to Pete Carroll's 97-19 record at USC.

Ironically, and quite unexpectedly, USC fell to No. 24 this season, and Oklahoma fell off the BCS radar completely. But Tressel and the Buckeyes forge ahead.