Ohio State's football team wasn't able to make a College Football Playoff run in 2017, but there were still plenty of memorable moments along the way.
From a thrilling victory in Ohio Stadium to another rivalry game win and a conference title, all while some of the Buckeyes' most prominent players rewrote the school record books, Ohio State's year on the gridiron featured numerous events that will remain in Buckeye lore for many years to come.
One Ohio State team did win a national championship in 2017, while another came very close. Meanwhile, two athletes from other Ohio State sports continued to establish themselves as two of the best athletes to ever come through Columbus, while the men's basketball program made a major change.
Those moments make up Eleven Warriors' Top Ohio State Moments of 2017.
11. Kelsey Mitchell becomes Ohio State’s all-time leading scorer in women’s basketball
On Dec. 6, Kelsey Mitchell passed Jantel Lavender on the all-time scoring list to become Ohio State women's basketball's top scorer in program history.
Mitchell, who now has 2,862 points for her career, dropped 30 against Florida on the road to pass Lavender, whose record stood for six years.
A Cincinnati native, Mitchell has the opportunity to lead Ohio State to a fourth straight NCAA Tournament appearance in 2018, but the Buckeyes – who have won 10 of their first 12 games of the season – likely have a bigger goal in mind. The Women’s Final Four is set to be held in Columbus in March 2018 at Nationwide Arena.
Kelsey Mitchell continued to rewrite Ohio State's record books in 2017.
10. J.T. Barrett continues to rewrite the school record books
While J.T. Barrett’s shortcomings have gotten as much attention as his success during his senior year, the records Ohio State’s quarterback set during the 2017 season are likely to stand for many years to come.
Among other records, Barrett became Ohio State’s winningest all-time starting quarterback, its all-time leader in passing yards and total offense and the Big Ten’s all-time leader in total touchdowns and passing touchdowns.
Barrett also became the first Ohio State quarterback ever to go 4-0 as a starter against Michigan, an achievement that could be matched but never surpassed.
Barrett’s legacy, at least in the short term, will be defined in part by the games he couldn’t win. His legacy as one of Ohio State’s most statistically prolific quarterbacks, however, will be longstanding. And his senior year, in which he was more successful than not and became the first-ever three-time Big Ten Quarterback of the Year, will go down as one of the defining marks of Ohio State’s 2017 season.
9. Billy Price breaks school record for consecutive starts, collects hardware
Like Barrett, Billy Price projects to have a longstanding place in Ohio State’s record books after surpassing Luke Fickell’s school record – which had stood since 1996 – for most consecutive games started.
Should Price start Ohio State’s final game of 2017 against USC in the Cotton Bowl, he will have started all 55 games in his four-year playing career, which will also tie him with Pat Elflein for the most games played in school history.
Price, in his lone season playing center after playing guard for his first three seasons as a Buckeye, has already matched Elflein’s other major accomplishments from his one and only season playing center last year. In addition to becoming the second straight Ohio State center to win the Rimington Trophy, Price also became Ohio State’s third straight Big Ten Offensive Lineman of the Year and third unanimous All-American in two years.
With a dominant 2017 season to cap off an illustrious career, Price ensured his place in the conversation among Ohio State’s all-time offensive line greats.
8. Three Ohio State defensive backs go in Round 1 of NFL draft
Ohio State staked a strong claim for being “DBU” in the first round of the 2017 NFL draft, when defensive backs Marshon Lattimore, Malik Hooker and Gareon Conley were all selected within the first 24 picks, marking the first time since Miami in 2002 – and only the second time ever in the draft's common era – that one school that had three defensive backs drafted in Round 1.
That historic night continued Ohio State’s strong run of having defensive backs drafted in the first round – five in the last four years alone – and of draft dominance in general, as Ohio State has had eight first-round picks in the last two years alone.
In total, Ohio State had seven players selected in the 2017 NFL draft, including six selections in the top 70; H-back Curtis Samuel and linebacker Raekwon McMillan were selected in the second round, while Elflein was drafted early in the third round.
While Hooker, Conley, Samuel and McMillan all had injury-shortened rookie seasons, Lattimore has already emerged as one of the NFL’s best cornerbacks with the New Orleans Saints while Elfein emerged as an immediate starter at center for the Minnesota Vikings.
Marshon Lattimore was selected by the Saints with the 11th overall pick of the 2017 NFL draft. Kirby Lee – USA TODAY Sports
7. Men’s lacrosse makes run to the national championship game
When you think of Ohio State athletics, lacrosse isn’t one of the first sports that comes to mind. However, the Buckeyes advanced all the way to the NCAA title game in 2017, coming up just short in a 9-6 loss to conference foe Maryland.
While the Buckeyes came up just short of the title, their run to the championship game was impressive. Head coach Nick Myers led Ohio State to a program-record 16 wins, one year after the Buckeyes failed to reach the .500 mark in 2016.
Senior attacker Eric Fannell led the Buckeyes with 66 points during their run to the title game, accounting for 36 goals and 30 assists.
6. Kyle Snyder defeats ‘Russian Tank’
Ohio State’s top individual athlete Kyle Snyder followed up his 2016 Olympic gold medal by winning the gold medal at the 2017 World Championships with a 6-5 win over Abdulrashid Sadulaev, better known as the "Russian Tank," to establish himself as the top pound-for-pound wrestler in the world.
Competing in Paris, Snyder pulled the upset over Sadulaev, who had not lost since 2013 before the Buckeye got the best of him. The win not only gave Snyder a gold medal – his third gold in as many years at the world's top international tournaments, having also won gold at the 2015 World Championships – it also led the United States squad to its first team world title in 20 years.
The win improved Snyder’s world individual record to a perfect 13-0, including his appearances at the Rio Olympics.
5. Chris Holtmann hired as Ohio State men’s basketball coach
When it was announced Thad Matta would no longer be the head basketball coach at Ohio State in early June, there was a lot of uncertainty surrounding the basketball program in Columbus.
Less than a week later though, Gene Smith got his man, pulling in Chris Holtmann from Butler. Despite making the hire late in the process, Holtmann was able to put together a top-30 recruiting class and get Ohio State off to an 8-3 start in his first year, setting the stage for a brighter future of Buckeye basketball.
Holtmann’s introductory press conference brought out a number of former Buckeye stars including Jared Sullinger, Greg Oden and even Mark Titus.
Chris Holtmann was introduced as Ohio State's new men's basketball coach on June 12.
4. Dwayne Haskins leads Buckeyes to sixth straight win over Michigan
When J.T. Barrett limped off the field in the third quarter of this year’s game at Michigan, Ohio State’s five-game winning streak against the Wolverines appeared to be in jeopardy. Trailing 20-14 with less than seven minutes to play in the third quarter, Ohio State’s offense had struggled to find rhythm even with its starting quarterback and its defense had been shaky, bailed out only by John O’Korn’s inability to hit wide open receivers.
Backup quarterback Dwayne Haskins, however, came in to save the day, leading the Buckeyes to a go-ahead touchdown on the very same drive on which Barrett was injured.
Facing a 3rd-and-13 just six plays after replacing Barrett in the game, Haskins made Ohio State’s play of the year when he threaded a 27-yard pass through double coverage to Austin Mack. Two plays, Haskins showed his athleticism on a 22-yard run, which set up a J.K. Dobbins touchdown run one play later.
Ohio State’s defense clamped down after that touchdown drive, holding Michigan scoreless on its final four possessions, and the Buckeyes went on to win, 31-20, improving Urban Meyer’s record as Ohio State coach to 6-0 over The Team Up North.
Should Haskins live up to the hype that surrounds him as Ohio State’s potential starting quarterback-in-waiting, there could be many more memorable moments to come in his Buckeyes career, but he’s already earned his place in Ohio State lore by engineering a comeback win over the Buckeyes’ biggest rival.
3. Men’s volleyball goes back-to-back
To repeat as national champions is special for any program, but to win the second one in front of your own fans on your home court takes the win to a different level.
Led by Nicolas Szerszen, the Buckeyes rolled BYU in the title match for the second straight season, winning in straight sets in front of 8,205 at St. John Arena on May 6. Szerszen, the NCAA Tournament MVP, tallied 16 wins in the victory which capped a 32-2 season for Ohio State.
Head coach Pete Hanson was inducted into the Ohio State Athletics Hall of Fame in 2017 after leading his team to back-to-back titles.
The Ohio State men's volleyball celebrated its second straight national championship in 2017.
2. Ohio State defeats Wisconsin for first Big Ten championship since 2014
The Ohio State football team was devastated when it found out it did not make the 2017 College Football Playoff, but just hours before that, the Buckeyes were celebrating on a stage inside Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis after defeating Wisconsin to win the Big Ten Championship Game for the second time in four years.
Just six days after undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery for the aforementioned injury suffered at Michigan, Barrett led the Buckeyes to a 27-21 victory over the Badgers on Dec. 2. Dobbins, on a night where he broke Maurice Clarett’s school record for single-season rushing yards by a freshman, ran for 174 yards and earned game MVP honors. Wisconsin’s own star freshman running back, Jonathan Taylor, was held to just 41 rushing yards by Ohio State’s rushing defense.
The joy of beating Wisconsin became overshadowed the next day by the disappointment of being left out of the playoff field, but when the 2017 season is remembered as a whole, it should not be forgotten that the Buckeyes re-emerged as kings of their conference, and did so with a quarterback who made an unusually quick return from injury.
"What we experienced last night in the locker room, knowing what we've been through in the season and then go out there and accomplish one of our goals, and that's to be the Big Ten champs, that's something that can't be taken away from us," Barrett said Dec. 3. "We'll definitely cherish that forever."
Confetti fell inside Lucas Oil Stadium as the Ohio State football team celebrated its Big Ten Championship Game win on Dec. 2.
1. Ohio State defeats Penn State in Ohio Stadium thriller
Ohio State’s most anticipated game of the 2017 season was everything it was hyped up to be and more.
Barrett completed his final 16 straight passes of the game, Ohio State’s defense shut down Penn State running back Saquon Barkley (the Heisman frontrunner at the time) and the Buckeyes outscored the Nittany Lions 19-3 in the fourth quarter to steal a 39-38 victory from the jaws of defeat in Ohio Stadium.
From Denzel Ward’s tide-turning punt block to Sam Hubbard tackling Barkley and Trace McSorley in one fell swoop to Barrett’s game-winning touchdown pass to Marcus Baugh, Ohio State’s victory over Penn State – a revenge game after the Buckeyes lost in Beaver Stadium one year earlier – made the Buckeyes’ Oct. 28 win in the Shoe an instant classic that will be remembered and rewatched by Ohio State fans long after 2017 is over.
The excitement of the win over Penn State, which temporarily thrust Ohio State into the national championship conversation and Barrett into the Heisman race, was doused with a wet blanket one week later when the Buckeyes suffered a 55-24 loss at Iowa.
Viewed in a vacuum, however, Ohio State’s win over Penn State was one of the greatest games in Ohio Stadium in recent history. It’s a game that numerous Buckeyes now consider to be their greatest memory as Ohio State football players. And it’s a game that stands out as the most electric moment of Ohio State’s 2017 year in sports.
