This Week in Data, produced by Eleven Warriors and 614Analytics, explores the numbers behind Ohio State athletics through data visualization.
Last Saturday, Ohio State punched its ticket to the inaugural College Football Playoff. They got there by rolling No. 13 Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship game, 59–0. While more than a few of you may have predicted an Ohio State victory, the margin came as a surprise to nearly everyone. It was the 2nd-largest margin of victory ever over a top-15 team and the only shutout recorded in a conference championship – for any league.
Historically, Ohio State has an average margin of victory of 12 points, including 276 shutouts since kicking off for the first time 125 years ago. We were interested in seeing just how dominant Saturday's performance was in a historical context.
Below we’ve plotted out margin of victory (or defeat) for every Buckeye game. Each season is grouped together, with the x-axis representing time and the y-axis representing the margin of victory – bars going up represent an Ohio State win, while bars going down represent a Buckeye loss.
Speaking in terms of individual games, Ohio State's biggest margin of victory carm from a 1916 matchup against the Oberlin Yeoman, where the Buckeyes walked away with a 128-0 victory over the program which launched the coaching career of John Heisman and is best known for the being the last in-state team to defeat Ohio State (in 1921).
As we touched on last week, Ohio State's worst defeat came at the hands of Michigan in 1902, when the Men of the Scarlet and Gray were trounced 82–0.
We wanted to take this a step further and chart Ohio State's average margin of victory (or defeat) against all opponents and the results are interesting.
The first thing that jumps out is that Ohio State and Miami (Fl.) are all squared. Over the 5 games where the two teams have met, they have both scored a cumulative 95 points against each other (though Ohio State can certainly lay claim to the biggest win in the series).
In 1904, the Carlisle Indian School defeated the Buckeyes 23-0 in their only matchup to date, recording Ohio State’s largest average margin of defeat to any team. This might sound like the Appalachian State loss of its time, but the Indians actually are the most successful defunct major college football program, with a historical winning percentage of .647.
Let's take a look at the margins against programs currently playing FBS football:
As you can see, Virginia holds the distinction of being the team Ohio State beat on the hardest, thanks to a 75-0 drumming in 1933.
Not so surprisingly, Florida currently holds the best margin of defeat against the Buckeyes at a -17 point differential from their two matchups in the 2007 BCS National Championship and the 2012 Gator Bowl.
Looking forward to the CFB Playoffs, Alabama currently holds the edge over Ohio State with an average point differential of -14 from three matchups where the Crimson Tide lead the series three games to none. The Bucks will need to win by 42 points to bring that historical point differential back to zero, which you know, is not exactly likely, but isn't impossible, either.
614analytics, based in Columbus, provides analytic content for the everyday person, with unique perspectives and concrete analysis for Ohio-based sports along with takes on data visualization. You can follow them on Twitter, @614Analytics.
