#6 Ohio State 62, #10 Nebraska 3
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One of the coolest things about Ohio State's blowout 63-38 win in 2012 over Nebraska is that it signaled that this whole "Urban Meyer is actually a vengeful spirit that feeds off touchdowns" myth might actually have some truth to it.
It's not like I had any reservations about Meyer as a coach at that point; the man was clearly one of the best coaches in the country and had proven that over and over (notably while dunking in the face of one of the most beloved figures in Ohio State history). But while I thought that he was an awesome hire who was going to make the Buckeyes a title contender, I was less certain that his brand of football would instantly translate into it raining touchdowns in Columbus. In part because I thought that the players available weren't quite ready for the system, and also in part because I was under the really misguided impression that the college football world had caught up to what an Urban Meyer offense was all about.
Then on a pleasant early October evening in his first season as head coach, Meyer and the Buckeyes put up 63 freaking points in a game where Braxton Miller threw the ball exactly 14 times but had 186 yards rushing, which paired nicely with Carlos Hyde's 140 yards on the ground.
That game sold me on the Meyer offense, and what was possible if you never take your foot off the throttle. Last night, which involved a similar amount of points from the Buckeyes but far fewer points from Nebraska, was a confirmation that yep: this can work pretty well.
Sometimes we forget that, because prior to the Meyer era consecutive blowouts of this nature of Big Ten opponents were pretty rare. The following is a list of teams that have surrendered 50 or more points in consecutive games to Ohio State in the last 15 years, and with one hilarious (to me) exception, this is not a Tressel-centric list.
ILLINOIS
The Fighting Illini have the distinction of having surrendered 50 or more points to Ohio State in three consecutive contests in a row starting in 2012 and ending in 2014. The average score of those games was also pretty devastating, at 56-24. I'm including this first because the last home game that I saw as a student at Ohio State was against Illinois in 2007.
NORTHWESTERN
Northwestern made the significant mistake of beating Tressel's Buckeyes once in 2004 in an utterly miserable game. This apparently had the effect of turning on some lost switch in the Senator's lizard brain, because he made it his mission to grind the Wildcats into a fine powder for the rest of his time at Ohio State. The Buckeyes scored 50-plus points on them in 2006 and 2007, but over Tressel's last four games against Northwestern the average score was 51 to, uh... 8.
Which, again, is very funny to me.
NEBRASKA
If I had kept this list to games of 60 points or more in consecutive games against an opponent, I'm fairly confident that I could've included every single team Ohio State has ever played and the list would've been exactly one item long. Yes, even Pitt in the 90s.
MARYLAND AND RUTGERS
Okay, this is a bit of a fudge since neither team technically meets the parameters that I set for this piece, but Rutgers has surrendered 56, 49, and 58 points in their last three meetings with the Buckeyes, and Maryland gave up 49 in 2015 and 52 in 2014. See you next week, Terps!
All in all, I seriously doubt that Nebraska will be enthusiastic about going to any night games in Columbus anytime in the next century or so. It's a testament to what Meyer has developed at Ohio State, and it's a good sign to know that the offense he's created continues to be capable of incredible things.
