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The Ohio State Buckeyes football team is a college football team that competes as part of the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision, representing Ohio State University in the East Division of the Big Ten Conference. Ohio State has played their home games at Ohio Stadium in Columbus, Ohio since 1922.[3]

The Buckeyes are recognized by the university and NCAA as having won eight national championships[4][5] along with 37 conference championships (including 35 Big Ten titles), six division championships, 10 undefeated seasons, and six perfect seasons of having no losses or ties.

The first Ohio State game was a 20-14 victory over Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio, on May 3, 1890. The team was a football independent from 1890 to 1901 before joining the Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC) as a charter member in 1902.[4] The Buckeyes won two conference championships while members of the OAC and in 1912 became members of the Big Ten Conference.[6]

Ohio State won their first national championship in 1942 under head coach Paul Brown.[4]

Following World War II, Ohio State saw sparse success on the football field with three separate coaches and in 1951 hired Woody Hayes to coach the team. Under Hayes, Ohio State won over 200 total games, 13 Big Ten championships and five national championships (1954, 1957, 1961, 1968 and 1970), and had four Rose Bowl wins in eight appearances.[4] Following Hayes' dismissal in 1978, Earle Bruce and later John Cooper coached the team to a combined seven conference championships between them.

Jim Tressel was hired as head coach in 2001 and led Ohio State to its seventh national championship in 2002 with a win in the Fiesta Bowl.[7] Ohio State won seven Big Ten championships under Tressel and appeared in eight Bowl Championship Series (BCS) games, winning five of them.

On November 28, 2011, two-time National Championship winning coach and Ohio native Urban Meyer became head coach.[8] Meyer led his team to five division championships in his first five seasons as well as a school record 24 straight victories, beginning with a perfect 12–0 in 2012. He led OSU to both the Big Ten and the first College Football Playoff National Championship of its kind in the 2014 season, giving Meyer his third national title overall and first at OSU.[9][10]As of 2017, the football program is valued at $1.5 billion,[11] the highest valuation of any such program in the country.[12]

Contents

1 History 1.1 Beginnings (1890–1933) 1.2 Francis Schmidt (1934–1940) 1.3 Paul Brown (1941–1943) 1.4 Carroll Widdoes (1944–1945), Paul Bixler (1946) and Wes Fesler (1947–1950) 1.5 Woody Hayes era (1951–1978) 1.6 Earle Bruce (1979–1987) 1.7 John Cooper (1988–2000) 1.8 Jim Tressel (2001–2010) 1.8.1 "Tattoogate" 1.9 Luke Fickell (2011) 1.10 Urban Meyer (2012–present) 2 Home venues 3 Traditions 3.1 Marching band 4 Rivalries 5 Coaches 5.1 Current coaching staff 6 Championships 6.1 National championships 6.2 Undefeated seasons 6.3 Conference championships 6.4 Divisional championships 7 All-time records 7.1 Results by year 7.2 Bowl games 7.2.1 Bowl record by game 7.3 All-time Big Ten records 8 Individual awards and achievements 8.1 Retired numbers 8.2 Heisman Trophy winners 8.3 All-American and All-Conference honors 8.4 List of All-Americans 8.5 Team MVP 8.6 All-Century Team 8.7 Paul "Bear" Bryant Award 8.8 AFCA Coach of the Year 9 Academic awards and achievements 9.1 College Sports Information Directors of America Academic All-America 9.1.1 Academic All-American Hall of Fame 9.1.2 Academic All-American Player of the Year 9.1.3 Academic All-Americans 9.2 National Football Foundation and College Football Hall of Fame 9.2.1 William V. Campbell Trophy 9.2.2 National Scholar-Athlete Awards 10 College Football Hall of Fame 11 Individual school records 11.1 Rushing records 11.2 Passing records 11.3 Receiving records 11.4 Kickoff return records 11.5 Punt return records 11.6 Kicking records 11.7 Punting records 11.8 Pro Football Hall of Fame 11.9 Canadian Football Hall of Fame 12 Media 13 Future non-conference opponents 14 Fan base 15 References 16 Further reading 17 External links

History Main article: History of Ohio State Buckeyes football See also: List of Ohio State Buckeyes football seasons Beginnings (1890–1933)

After early attempts at forming a team in 1886 (led by future Nebraska governor Chester Hardy Aldrich) and 1887, football was ultimately established at the university in 1890. On the site of the first OSU game, on the campus of Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio, on May 3, 1890, the Delaware County Historical Society has set an historical marker.[13]

Some histories of Ohio State football credit George Cole, an undergraduate, and Alexander S. Lilley with introducing the sport to the campus. More recent research has challenged that claim, stating that George Cole persuaded Lilley to coach the football team during its first full season that fall.[13]

OSU's first home game took place at 2:30 p.m. on November 1, 1890. The Ohio State University played the University of Wooster on this site, which was then called Recreation Park. Just east of historic German Village, the park occupied the north side of Schiller (now Whittier) between Ebner and Jaeger in what is now Schumacher Place. The weather was perfect, and the crowd cheered loudly. Nonetheless, OSU lost to Wooster, 64–0. Wooster, physically fit for the game, showed OSU that training is critical to winning. Thus, the tradition of training continues.

Over the next eight years, under a number of coaches, the team played to a cumulative record of 31 wins, 39 losses, and 2 ties. The first game against the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, was a 34–0 loss in 1897, a year that saw the low point in Buckeye football history with a 1–7–1 record. Jack Ryder was Ohio State's first paid coach, earning $150 per season, and lost his first game, against Oberlin College and John Heisman, on October 15, 1892.[14]

In 1899 the university hired John Eckstorm to bring professional coaching skills to the program and immediately went undefeated.[15] In 1901, however, center John Segrist was fatally injured in a game against Western Reserve University and the continuation of football at Ohio State was in serious question. Although the school's athletic board let the team decide its future, Eckstorm resigned.[16] In 1912 football underwent a number of developments that included joining the Western Conference, making football as part of a new Department of Athletics, and hiring Lynn W. St. John to be athletic director.

Chic Harley attended East High in Columbus and was one of the greatest players to attend an Ohio high school. He passed, ran, received, punted, kicked and played defense. Harley came to Ohio State in 1916 and Columbus fans instantly fell in love with the Chic. Harley and the Buckeyes won the very first Big Ten championship in school history in 1916 when the Buckeyes finished 7–0. He would repeat in 1917 finishing 8–0–1, giving the Buckeyes a second outright title. In 1918, he left to be a pilot in the air force for World War I. With Harley's return in 1919, the Buckeyes would only lose one game—to Illinois. Chic Harley left OSU with a career record of 22–1–1. At the time, OSU played at the small Ohio Field and Harley brought such record crowds it became necessary to open Ohio Stadium in 1922. The stadium was built entirely on fan donations and several stadium drives around the city where Harley would often appear. In 1951, when the College Football Hall of Fame opened, Harley was inducted as an inaugural member.

Ohio State's very first rival was Kenyon College, a small liberal arts college in Gambier, roughly 50 miles to the northeast. The Buckeyes first played them in their first season in 1890 on Nov 27, Kenyon won the first two meetings; however, Ohio State won 15 in a row and the rivalry diminished. Kenyon made it their season goal to defeat OSU. After the Bucks joined the Big Ten they stopped playing Kenyon. The all-time record stands at 18–6, OSU.