Typically our Remember When series deals with events beyond almost all living memory, but this time is a little different.
The very first thing that I wrote for Eleven Warriors, way back in those heady days of 2010, was about kicking. I made a Simpsons joke, made fun of Lydell Ross, and generally extolled the virtues of just one guy being essentially the only functioning part of Ohio State's offense in the early days of the Tressel era. To wit:
...What if there was a team so incompetent offensively that the kicker became the most consistent scoring weapon? What if that kicker shared his name with a man who once laid down some serious riffs in a loincloth? What if that team was the 2004 Ohio State Buckeyes and that kicker was Mike Nugent?
Part of the reason that I thought this might make for a good Remember When? is because under Urban Meyer, the field goal kicking game has become increasingly less important. In his first year as head coach, Ohio State attempted 11 field goals, which is 15 fewer than Jim Tressel's team did in his last season at Ohio State.
In fact, Tressel's teams averaged 24.5 field goal attempts a year, whereas Urban's teams have only sent out their field goal unit an average of 14 times a year. The reasons for this should be fairly obvious, but I'm worried that as we revel in an orgy of red zone touchdown conversions, we're forgetting a truly incredible run by one of the greatest Ohio State placekickers of all time.
One grainy video is the only evidence left.
The Ohio State offense through the first five games of the 2004 season was generally pretty awful. When Justin Zwick and Lydell Ross are your featured stars at QB and running back, you're going to struggle to score touchdowns. So, the obvious solution is: kick field goals. And man, Ohio State kicked field goals. Mike Nugent was 8 for 9 during that stretch and also made every extra point attempt.
Nuge's magnum opus was against NC State, where Ohio State managed only 137 yards of offense, but still won 22-14 because Nugent went 5 for 5 on field goals, including three from at least 45 yards out. All told, he accounted for 41 percent of the Ohio State scoring offense through the first five games, a ludicrous number that no other non-QB player has been able to match (or even really come close to).
To put that number in perspective, I decided to take a look at the last five games of the 2014 season to see what percentage of the scoring offense that Ezekiel Elliott accounted for. This includes his dominant games against Wisconsin and Alabama, and a four-touchdown performance against Oregon. Add all of those points up, divide by the total points scored in those five games, and you get... 31 percent. However much Zeke meant to Ohio State points-wise in their Championship run, Mike Nugent meant 10 percent more in 2004 as the Buckeyes struggled to keep their heads above water.
It wasn't all rainbows and sunshine. If Nugent is perfect on field goals against Northwestern, that game never goes to overtime and Ohio State never sustains one of the most embarrassing losses during Jim Tressel's tenure. And in the game following that, Ohio State was never even able to get within field goal range to allow Nuge a shot as making it closer than it was in a 24-13 loss to Wisconsin (which is a feat given that his range was anywhere within the 50-yard line).
Still, the one indelible image of Nugent's dominant run is that of him beating an annoyingly game Marshall team with a 55-yard field goal as time expired, cementing him as one of the most automatic players in Ohio State history.
Under Urban Meyer, Ohio State will probably never see the likes of a Mike Nugent. Not because of a lack of available talent, but because the conditions that would allow for a placekicker to become team MVP for an entire season would lead Meyer to permanently swear off football and head to a cave in Tibet for a few years.
Which makes me a little sad! Sure, thanks to some incredible athletes I've been able to witness some truly incredible stuff over the past five years or so, but nothing will top sitting in Block O as a baby-faced sophomore and losing my mind because I just watch a dude become a folk hero by nailing an impossible field goal.
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