"He's finished first or second in the Big Ten for five straight years."
Sounds like consistent great-to-elite performances in an era where two teams were dominant. Hard to be disappointed with contention and excitement like that, unless you're one of those if you're not first you're last types.
But finishing position isn't the whole story in college football - it's just one measurement.
One item is still missing from his portfolio: a national championship. Unfortunately, when you wear little adhesive buckeyes on the side of your helmet, that is kind of the point of playing the games.
Ah, so we're talking about Ohio State, where the measurements of note are national championships, conference titles and winning final game on the regular season schedule. Three measurements for display. All other achievements go directly into storage.
The passages above are from a 27-year old Sports Illustrated article about John Cooper, who lifted the program into the national relevance it still enjoys today. That five-year stretch where the Buckeyes finished first or second? The other teams in that pairing were Wisconsin, Penn State, Northwestern twice and Michigan just once.
One program was dominant back then. It was not accompanied by a dynasty. The Wolverines had gotten accustomed to finishing in the middle of the pack, but they still found exactly one way to punctuate those mediocre seasons with celebrations.
Coop arrived in Columbus in 1988. That article was written ahead of the 1997 season. When this issue showed up in mailboxes, Ohio State still had no recent national titles, just two shared conference titles stained by Michigan losses and one total win on the final Saturday in November.
Oh, and one tie, too. You could tie games back then; don't ask - the 1992 one is in storage for a reason. Nationally, Coop's Buckeyes were so good they were on the top tier of the sport. Regionally, they all of the makings of a dynasty, but without a trophy collection to show for it.
The Buckeyes were No. 2 in the AP poll at the end of last season and No. 6 the year before, and by now most college football observers assume Cooper will soon be wearing a straitjacket. How many times can the man just miss before he slips over the edge?
Last year Ohio State was 10-0 and ranked No. 2 when it welcomed Michigan to Columbus on Nov. 23. The Buckeyes' 13-9 loss derailed their quest for the national title and reminded Cooper that the view from the Ohio State coach's office is never as idyllic as it seems.
The column goes on about Michigan ruining Ohio State's shine in an era when Coop's Buckeyes produced a dozen 1st round NFL Draft picks over seven seasons. Hey, you'll never guess how many 1st rounders Ryan Day's Buckeyes have produced during his tenure.
Of course you can (yes, it's a dozen) because if you're old enough to remember that SI article - it was called Cooper's Town, haha get it - you're old enough to realize we're currently in a 1990s rerun, from the interloper head coach from somewhere else who almost always says the right thing and insists on doing it his way, to the November results or lack thereof.
Nov 21, 1998; Columbus, OH, USA; Ohio State Buckeyes linebacker Andy Katzenmoyer (45) in action against Michigan Wolverines quarterback Tom Brady (10) at Ohio Stadium. The Buckeyes beat the Wolverines 31-16. © Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports
If the parallel isn't making sense yet, buckle in - that article's publish date came four months prior to a Michigan national title in football - you're definitely old enough to appreciate how absolutely hideous that feels. And then the following April, something equally improbable to the Wolverines reaching the mountaintop took place.
Not a single Ohio State Buckeye heard his named called at the NFL Draft. First and only time ever.
It wasn't because the 1997 Buckeyes weren't talented - they by six points in Ann Arbor, separated from Gold Pants by two telegraphed, debilitating Stanley Jackson interceptions - one which erased a touchdown and another which gave Michigan one instead.
And then zero Buckeyes were drafted off that team - Pepe Pearson was the only guy even at the NFL Combine. Every other player of consequence would be returning to play for the program capable of winning everything but consistently getting blanked on program measurements. Tantalizingly close all the time. Not first. Felt like last.
Fast-forward to the 2024 Buckeyes, themselves coming off another six-point loss in Ann Arbor (where there any telegraphed, debilitating interceptions in that game? Can't remember) having seen the fewest players drafted in over a decade after watching the team they should have put away on their own field print national championship shirt and hats and hopefully you're seeing enough similarities.
This latest inevitability campaign is ryan Day's best opportunity to pull Ohio State out of this Cooper-Era simulation.
Twenty-seven seasons later Ohio State has completed three-peats in the unmeasured Ohio State categories of B1G Offensive Player of the Year, Heisman finalists and double-digit wins. Zeroes in the measured ones. Reigning champs Up North. No idea how or if they cheated back then and the point is no one remembers or cares, titles are titles.
Your team hasn't won a playoff game with fans packed in the stands going back to 2015. That strait jacket Coop never got fitted for is stylish again, and our 1998 simulation features another absolutely loaded team with upperclassmen everywhere and the reigning national champions scheduled to visit Columbus in November.
Ah, yes. The 1998 Buckeyes. The team not even the Coopiest version of Coop could Coop up.
It's a season stuck to the skulls and hearts of parishioners lucid enough to remember the aftermath of that narrow loss in Ann Arbor, the 1997 Michigan title, that quiet NFL Draft for what had become a pre-hashtag #DevelopedHere program, the unprecedented reloading and offseason rumbling that something special was inevitable - and all the events which followed.
We are back. If you missed it the first time, 2024 feels awfully familiar. Here's your soundtrack.
There are bullish Buckeye confidence years, and then there are the inevitability campaigns. That 1997 season was the final year of the Mythical National Title (a nod to the inevitable half*-title comments about Michigan in the comments below) making 1998 the first year of the BCS, and - excellent timing - the best team in country was the one in Columbus.
The 2013 season was the last year of the BCS, and what should have been an unstoppable Ohio State team fumbled the bag - but they picked it back up again in the first season of the College Football Playoff a year later.
Just returning TreVeyon Henderson and Emeka Egbuka would have been seen as a retention coup. In total the Buckeyes are returning eight draft-eligible players for the 2024 season. © Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK
The 2019 season had our current feeling with a new starting QB. Sprinkle a little of that on the 1998/2024 parallel - that's one more position that wasn't mysterious for Coop's best team.
Those Buckeyes won every game by double-digits except the one they didn't win at all. Favored by 17. They were leading 17-3 and Cooped it. Of all the impossible moments in Ohio Stadium before and since, that game against Sparty is still at the top.
We've time-traveled from the first year of the BCS to the first attempt at an extended 12-team postseason tournament, an event that seems unreal today but would have felt like an alien invasion in 1998. The program in Columbus will again be stacked even by its own conventionally stacked standards.
This is that kind of inevitability campaign, accompanied by the same vibes and dread of that era.
We've recast nearly everything from 27 years ago - Michael Wiley (the closest analog we've ever had to TreVeyon Henderson) and Joe Montgomery both returned to give the Buckeyes a rushing offense which almost made passing optional. Henderson and Quinshon Judkins give this offense that kind of explosion and stamina.
They just had to run left, as the right side of their offensive line was a tad shaky. That tracks.
Joe Germaine, as one would say about an incumbent in an election year, ran unopposed for the starting QB job - the most conspicuous deviation from the 2024 parallel. He threw darts to David Boston, Dee Miller, Ken-Yon Rambo and Reggie Germany. Hard to guard one of those guys, let alone all of them.
The defense had no question marks. It just desperately needed to get through a big game without being betrayed by the offense, special teams or any of the wicked bad vibes which had sprung up to haunt Coop's best teams at the worst moments.
Nothing like the officiating and odd bounces in Glendale or Atlanta of late. But still, spooky.
Day just might be able to steer Ohio State out of this simulation by doing exactly what Coop himself measurably achieved in 1998.
This Ohio State team will sleepwalk to its standard double-digit win total, celebrate numerous postseason awards which will go straight into storage and then have a whole slew of players hear their names called next April. The 1998 team did all of those things too, as expected.
It won another shared Big Ten crown, beat the defending national champs rather handily - and even won their bowl game. But it got left out of the BCS title game because of that one loss. Missing out on the opportunity to even play for a championship would be devastating with the current roster, and it's hard to forecast what that would do for Ohio State's head coach by looking to 1998.
The 1998 team missed the BCS. This inevitability campaign cannot fathom missing a 12-team playoff.
Coop was 16 years older than Day is now and it was clear he understood he would never have a roster like that one again. Program atrophy accelerated quickly and he was replaced by Jim Tressel just about two years after his 1998 jewel put Texas A&M in a headlock for four hours while sleepwalking.
Day is keen on skipping the strait jacket and resuming the trajectory the program had prior to the pandemic - Jeff Hafley's premature departure, the mis-hires which followed and *gestures wildly* everything else that's gone south, both because of and in spite of his best efforts.
He needs to get the rivalry and a newly continental conference back in Ohio State's control and give the best shot possible when the title is on the line. This latest inevitability campaign is Day's best chance to pull Ohio State out of this 1990s simulation.
Not that it was his intention, but he's got the Buckeyes right back where they were 27 years ago. He was a player at New Hampshire back then, spending most games on the sideline near Chip Kelly that season. We're going full-1998, comrades.
Day has made nearly all the right moves this offseason, and unlike that 1998 team - as wretched as it is to think about - he can drop a game on this schedule and still achieve all of the measurements. He just can't lose that game.
Which means Day just might be able to steer Ohio State out of this simulation by doing exactly what Coop himself measurably achieved in 1998. He objectively had the best team in the country.
He beat Michigan and won the postseason. If Day can pull that off, Columbus will be his town.
