When Urban Meyer was broached the topic of his 2015 Ohio State team's season credentials Sunday — minutes after he learned the No. 7 Buckeyes would face No. 8 Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl — he quickly turned the conversation to the group of players that have been in Columbus as long as he has.
"I look back at the bigger picture of what this group of players, someone told me if we win one more game it’s a record for 50 wins by a senior class," Meyer said. "That takes your breath away a little bit."
An Ohio State spokesman confirmed after the press conference that if the Buckeyes take care of business against the Fighting Irish, the 2015 senior class will have 50 wins to its name — a program record.
Since 2002, just two other programs have a chance to reach the 50-win plateau over a four-year span this bowl season — Florida State and Alabama. Jimbo Fisher's program is 49-5 since 2012. Nick Saban and Alabama are 48-6 over the last four years, and could reach 50 wins if it wins the national championship this season since that requires two more victories.
Since the same season, only one college football program has secured 50 wins over a four-year time frame. That was Boise State, which did so from 2008-11 under Chris Peterson, now Washington's head coach. The Broncos also had 49 wins from 2006-09, but they were the only other program outside of Ohio State, Alabama and Florida State to seriously threaten the mark. Even Pete Carroll's USC teams never won more than 48 games over a span of four years, doing so from 2003-06.
Ohio State's success in the postseason a year ago is a big reason why the 2015 seniors have a shot at 50 wins — the new age of the College Football Playoff potentially extends the season to 15 games for two teams each year, provided they play in a conference title game.
Yes, the Buckeyes missed out on the goal they set out to achieve at the beginning of the season. A 17-14 home loss to Michigan State Nov. 21 prevented Ohio State from getting a shot at winning the Big Ten Championship and ultimately a national championship.
However, a dominant victory over archrival Michigan a week later made the senior class 49-4 since they arrived on campus prior to the 2012 season — the same time as Meyer. It put them into a position to reach the half century mark in the win column and gave them their fourth win in as many tries against the Wolverines.
"We were playing our rivals, going to their stadium and how do you want to go out?" quarterback J.T. Barrett, a redshirt sophomore, said last week. "That was the mindset, I wanted it for the seniors, I wanted to play hard and make sure we went out and played well against the Team Up North."
Ohio State did that against the Wolverines. So while Meyer and his team may be disheveled and upset they missed out on a chance to make the College Football Playoff for the second time in two years, a victory against Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl will end the season on a high note and give guys like Joshua Perry, Taylor Decker, Adolphus Washington, Jacoby Boren and others a cool total of 50 victories for their college résumés.
"Like I said, that could be a record for that senior class," Meyer said. "You win 50 games over four years, that's pretty outstanding."
