One of the advantages of being a fan of a really, really, really good football program is that you have the ability to forever turn inward after a loss; if not for mistakes that Ohio State made, if not for missed opportunities by Urban Meyer or J.T. Barrett, if not for bad play on the part of Nick Bosa, then surely the Buckeyes would've, could've and by all right should have beaten anyone and everyone, up to and including the '85 Bears.
Fans of bad programs can't do this. When your favorite team sucks, you're forced to confront the fact that, well... they suck. Losses are almost always the responsibility of the team that beat them, because that team was just better in some (usually really) significant way.
That you might actually be bad and that sometimes there are teams that are just better, dammit, is actually a pretty healthy attitude to take. If a team believes that they were just one errant pass or one fake punt away from victory, they may not take the same lessons from a loss that a team that got the absolute piss kicked out of them did. A great man once said that "there's nothing that cleanses your soul like getting the hell kicked out of you," and he was right.
In the past five seasons, only five football programs have been able to get a win over Ohio State. It'd be easy to dismiss these mostly as flukes (especially where losses to other teams in the Big Ten are concerned), but a closer look at the fortunes of these teams after their win over the Buckeyes shows that they deserve more than the little respect than we as fans tend to grudgingly give them, even after a loss. By knowing that, a team is less likely to fall prey to them in the future.
MICHIGAN STATE, 2013
It's really easy (and convenient) to blame the loss to Sparty in the 2013 Big Ten Championship game on a crappy playcall that cost Ohio State the game in a 34-24 loss. Except... it probably didn't. What's lost in our collective memories of that game is that the Buckeyes couldn't stop a Michigan State touchdown drive immediately following the failure to Run It With Hyde. Had they managed that and scored on the next drive, 2013 Ohio State would've been Big Ten Champions.
It's a bitter loss because of a missed opportunity, but that's also probably doing disservice to one of the greatest Michigan State teams in memory. They went 13-1, winning the Rose Bowl after the Big Ten championship, and finishing 3rd in the country. They were a legitimately great team, and understanding this recontextualizes the loss to them as one of a young team approaching the height of their powers to a veteran group that had already found theirs.
CLEMSON, 2014
Losing to Clemson in the 2014 Orange Bowl was painful, in part because it was the first time ever that the Buckeyes had lost a game after scoring 35 points, but also because it seemed like Braxton Miller's best shot at bowl immortality against a very good but not great team. This is probably accurate. Clemson had only two losses in 2014, both to top 10 opponents, and won against Ohio State mostly because of a terrific performance by quarterback Tajh Boyd and receiver Sammy Watkins.
And frankly, that performance was what Ohio State players, coaches, and fans rightly focused on; Ohio State needed to get better in pass defense, and they did.
VIRGINIA TECH, 2014
Immediately after this game there was plenty of blame to go around, which was probably exacerbated by the fact that it was a home game Ohio State was expected to win fairly handily. What's interesting about this game is that most of the non-hyperbolic and frank assessments about the Buckeyes was right, and much of the loss could be blamed on poor offensive line play, incoherence on offense, and shaky quarterback play (all of which, obviously, got fixed as the season went on).
This is one of those times when it was appropriate to be more than a little navel-gazey. Virginia Tech went on to have a pretty awful 2014 campaign, losing six of their last 11 games, and beating Ohio State on their home turf seemed to be more of a case of catching a team at exactly the right time. The Hokies did end up beating Cincinnati in the Military Bowl later on, however, so that's fun.
MICHIGAN STATE, 2015
This Sparty team looked like somewhat of a 2013 retread when they rolled into Columbus. They had only one loss on their resume, by a point to Nebraska, and were poised for another Big Ten championship run. The game that they went on to win against Urban Meyer and company was indicative of yes, an opponent that refused to give Ezekiel Elliott the damn ball, but also a team that had an opportunistic defense and excellent coaching. We remember that this Spartan team got destroyed by Alabama in the Cotton Bowl, but it was also another Big Ten championship for Mark Dantonio.
PENN STATE, 2016
Like Michigan State, this is another case of a team that definitely got some lucky breaks against the Buckeyes, but has also emerged as one of the premiere programs in the Big Ten. It's really tempting to look at their three point win in 2016 as a bit of a lucky break for them, but it was the logical end result of a three year process that saw a team steadily improve after a 49 point loss to Ohio State in 2013.
Since that win in Happy Valley last season, Penn State has played 14 games and won 13 of them, their only loss coming in a shootout against USC in the Rose Bowl. They are a very dangerous team, and anyone expecting that Ohio State will get revenge for 2016 simply because "they're due" might be in for a rude awakening.
CLEMSON, 2016
This one is obvious; after blanking the Buckeyes in the College Football Playoff at the end of last season, the Clemson Tigers went on to (mercifully) win the national championship. It was a hard loss to swallow, but the circumstances around even appearing in the playoff game probably gave us, as fans, a better perspective of the implications of the talent of the Tigers and the deficiencies of the Buckeyes.
OKLAHOMA, 2017
The script has yet to be fully written on the Sooners this year, but despite a rough past few games, Baker Mayfield and company appear to be capable of righting the ship after a disappointing loss to Iowa State. It's interesting that the Sooners might very well be able to recreate Ohio State's 2014 season, because as long as they can keep winning, an early and unexpected loss won't keep them out of the playoff.
So with only one somewhat unusual exception, Ohio State's recent losses have come at the hands of excellent teams that were capable of exerting control over games on their own terms. Another one of those teams comes to Ohio Stadium on Saturday, and if Ohio State wants to beat them, they'll have to acknowledge what makes Penn State great, and then work hard to grind those things into dust.
Staring up in awe at your opponent isn't helpful, and respecting their talent isn't the same as being afraid of it; the Buckeyes have a great chance to win on Saturday, but only if they work to take away what James Franklin and company have built since the last time these two teams met. Do that, and the story once again becomes about how Ohio State is one of the best teams in the country.
