OSU-ND look back
Safety Lathan Ransom (left) and defensive end Zach Harrison (right) celebrate a defensive stand during their game versus Penn State in Ohio Stadium last year. Photo by Sam Fahmi/Columbus Wired.
It’s going to be the biggest, most hyped game of the weekend, and for good reason. It's the only contest featuring two teams ranked in the top 5.
On Saturday night, Ohio Stadium will be ablaze when the No. 2 Ohio State Buckeyes welcome the No. 5 Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
Hopefully the Horseshoe will only figuratively, not literally, be ablaze. However, if the Buckeyes win, there’s always a chance a few couches on some campus housing could be torched or a car or two flipped over in celebration. The same could be said if they lose. Maybe worse.
What also makes this game extremely interesting is the storyline that came about at the end of last season and continued to matriculate throughout the spring and summer, being former Ohio State linebackers Marcus Freeman and James Laurinaitis will be pacing the visitors sideline. Freeman is Notre Dame’s new head coach and Laurinaitis is his “graduate assistant” with an emphasis on the defense. The reason for the quotation marks around graduate assistant is meant to be tongue-in-cheek because typically grad assistants are newly graduated, former players who are looking to get into coaching so they become a grad assistant at the team they just finished playing for. Grad assistants typically aren’t NFL veterans in their mid-30’s. Another former Buckeye that will be alongside them is former OSU linebackers coach Al Washington, who was let go by Ryan Day after this past season but was almost immediately scooped up Freeman to be his defensive run game coordinator.
That storyline combined with the preseason rankings and the fact that these two teams have rarely played each other should get the 100,000-plus in the ‘Shoe rocking come 7:30 p.m.
The Irish haven’t had much to celebrate, though, when it comes to this game. In what will be only the seventh meeting between the two schools in over 130 years of football for both programs, Notre Dame is 2-4. Both of those wins came close to a century ago when they beat Ohio State 18-13 in Columbus in 1935 and the following year in South Bend, 7-2. The ‘35 game was hailed as the “Greatest College Game Ever Played” because not only were both teams unbeaten but the way it ended left the college football world in awe.
The first-ever meeting looked in the bag for the Buckeyes as they held a 13-0 lead heading into the fourth quarter. However, the Irish scored three touchdowns, including two within the last five minutes, to give the Scarlet and Gray their first loss of the season and Notre Dame started off 1-0 in the rivalry.
The next season, the Irish were 3-1 and fresh off a 26-0 loss to Pitt as the Buckeyes were floundering at 2-2. Despite unveiling the The Best Damn Band In The Land’s incomparable Script Ohio two weeks earlier against Northwestern, the good vibes weren’t enough for the Buckeyes to even scrounge together a touchdown as the Irish notched their second straight victory in the series.
However, Ohio State hasn’t lost to Notre Dame since that ‘36 game, ripping off four consecutive wins.
Their first was 1995, when they were ranked No. 7 and Notre Dame was No. 15. The Irish had a 10-0 lead early in the second quarter until OSU quarterback Bobby Hoying hooked up with wide receiver Terry Glenn for a 10-yard strike with eight minutes to play in the first half. The two teams would go back-and-forth after ND running back Randy Kinder rushed for his second TD of the game with four and-a-half minutes to play in the half but was answered when Hoying tossed his second TD of the game finding receiver Demetrious Stanley in the upper-right corner of the end zone with less than a minute to go and pulled the Buckeyes to within a field goal, 17-14.
After a third quarter Kevin Kopka field goal gave Notre Dame a 20-14 lead, Hoying found tight end Rickey Dudley from 15 yards out to put the Buckeyes ahead for their first lead of the game, 21-20. Ohio State would never relinquish the lead after that, holding the Irish to one second half TD while punching it into the end zone three more times.
Those scores included Hoying and Glenn’s 82-yard pitch-and-catch TD where Glenn caught the ball on a short curl route up the left side and turned towards the middle of the field, burning a couple of ND defenders for OSU’s fourth TD of the game to give them a 28-20 lead.
Running back Eddie George would punch in a five-yarder off the left side to begin the fourth quarter to make it 35-20. However, Notre Dame would immediately answer when Kinder scored his third TD of the game on a 13-yard sweep off the right side. The two-point conversion was unsuccessful but the Irish still had life, trailing 35-26 with 12:55 to play.
But then came George’s iconic run that adorns a plethora of Buckeye fans’ man cave and social profile pics to this day.
On the ensuing offensive play after Kinder’s TD run, George took a pitch from Hoying out of the backfield to the left side - which was perfectly blocked by Dudley, guard Jamie Sumner and tackle Orlando Pace - 61 yards up the left sideline to the ND 19. And all Notre Dame head coach Lou Holtz could do was look on in disbelief in his neck brace to see his defense give up such a huge run. George would push it in from three yards out three plays later to give the Buckeyes a 42-26 lead with a little over 12 minutes to go. A Josh Jackson field goal with six minutes left was the capper and Ohio State would vanquish the 59-year curse of having lost to Notre Dame two games in a row.
On a personal note, I was at that game sitting in the old Block “O” section in the north stands as a wide-eyed freshman and was in pure bliss rushing the field as my best friend climbed on top of the goal post in the south end zone to celebrate. I believe he made the cover of OSU’s school newspaper The Lantern the following Monday.
But I digress.
The subsequent season saw the Buckeyes traveling to South Bend ranked No. 4 while the Irish were No. 5. Ohio State had lost a bunch of dudes from the previous year including three-year starter and record-setter Hoying (career TD passes, 57), Dudley - who was drafted in the first round by the Raiders the following spring - Biletnikoff Award-winner Glenn and Heisman winner George. But the defense was stacked and that was the year they came to be known as the Silver Bullets with such studs as defensive linemen Matt Finkes, Mike Vrabel and Luke Fickell as well as defensive backs Rob Kelly, Damon Moore and NFL All-Pros Shawn Springs and Antoine Winfield. At linebacker, there were Ryan Miller and Greg Bellisari. Oh yeah, there was some true freshman named Andy Katzenmoyer, who stepped foot on campus as the USA TODAY high school defensive player of the year. The “Big Kat” started right away and was an absolute beast that filled up the middle like very few who had played before him.
Nonetheless, even with the gaudy No. 4 ranking, there were very few who gave OSU a chance given they were missing so many guys from the year before and ND was ranked No. 5 playing at home in a “revenge game”. By the time the first half had elapsed, the Buckeyes held a commanding 22-7 lead and would go on to win the game 29-16 and the series evened at two apiece.
Fast forward nearly 10 years later and they found themselves matched up for the fifth time but for the first time on a neutral field in Glendale, Ariz. for the 2006 Fiesta Bowl. Ohio State was ranked No. 4 and Notre Dame was No. 6.
The Buckeyes were led by eventual Heisman winning quarterback Troy Smith, running back Antonio Pittman and receivers Santonio Holmes, Anthony Gonzalez and the electrifying Ted Ginn, Jr. Not to be outdone, the defense featured future pros like linebackers Bobby Carpenter, Anthony Schlegel, James Laurinaitis and All-Pro A.J. Hawk as well as defensive backs Nate Salley, Donte Whitner and Malcolm Jenkins.
Notre Dame was led by Dublin, Ohio native Brady Quinn, who was the nation’s Sammy Baugh Trophy winner - which ironically, is handed out by The Touchdown Club of Columbus. At receiver, the Irish had future pro Maurice Stovall as well as future MLB pitcher Jeff Samardzija and on defense, All-American safety Tom Zbikowski.
The game was even all the way through. Well, almost. The two teams tied 7-7 in the first quarter and 13-13 in the second half but it was the second quarter that was all the difference as the Buckeyes blanked the Irish, 14-0.
Notre Dame struck first on running back Darius Walker’s 20-yard TD run barely two minutes into the game. However, OSU would storm back with three straight scores starting with a 59-yard bomb between Smith and Ginn when Smith found a streaking Ginn wide open by 15 yards up the left side on a simple drop back from the “I” form. The second score was Ginn again as he took a pitch on a reverse from Smith and raced up the left sideline for 68 yards, zig-zagging his way around ND defenders to the endzone for the last 20 yards. The third score was another bomb from Smith but this time it was to Holmes, who burnt coverage up the middle and had three or four yards of separation, made the catch at midfield and raced the rest of the way for an 85-yard TD catch to give the Buckeyes a 21-7 halftime lead. Walker once again found the end zone with less than five minutes left in the third quarter on a 10-yard run but they missed the extra point to make it 21-13 OSU. Two Josh Huston field goals later and Ohio State held a 27- 13 lead. But the Irish would manage to stay in the game when Walker would once again get into the end zone for his third TD of the night and closed OSU’s lead to seven, 27-20, with a little over five minutes to play in the game. The Buckeyes would manage the clock after that score and put together a 13-play, 80-yard drive that took 4:45 off the clock and was capped by Pittman taking a handoff to the left side, found a hole off the left tackle and zipped untouched up the left side for a game-sealing 60-yard TD run to give Ohio State a 34-20 victory.
Fast forward almost exactly 10 years to the day and the two teams once again found themselves on a neutral field. In Glendale. For the Fiesta Bowl.
The Buckeyes were ranked No. 7 at 11-1 with their lone loss being a three-point heartbreaker to Michigan State at home which prevented them from playing for a conference title because the Spartans ended up representing the Big Ten East in the game. The Irish were ranked right behind Ohio State with a 10-2 record.
The Buckeyes had won the national title the year before and were still loaded from that Natty-winning team with school and Big Ten record-setting quarterback J.T. Barrett, running back Ezekiel Elliott and wide receivers Michael Thomas and Curtis Samuel. The defense was bolstered by defensive backs Eli Apple, Gareon Conley, Tyvis Powell and Vonn Bell, linebackers Darron Lee, Raekwon McMillan and Joshua Perry as well as first-team All-American defensive end Joey Bosa.
Notre Dame featured future pro quarterback DeShone Kizer and receiver Will Fuller while being anchored on defense by linebackers Jaylon Smith and Joe Schmidt.
Unlike the previous Fiesta Bowl where ND struck first, the Buckeyes would draw first blood on an Elliott two-yard TD run with just under 10 minutes to play in the first quarter. A little more than two minutes later, OSU scored again, this time on a 15-yard strike between Barrett and Thomas to give the Buckeyes a 14-0 first quarter lead. Halfway through the second quarter, the Irish got on the board with running back Josh Adams’ three-yard run to make it 14-7. Elliott would punch it in two more times during that quarter, each from one yard out, while Kizer also had a one-yard TD run to end the second quarter scoring and gave OSU a 28-14 halftime lead.
In the second half, Kizer found receiver Chris Brown midway through the third quarter for a four-yard score but Elliott would dazzle with a highlight reel 47-yard TD run up the middle untouched. Afterwards, he gave the Bosa shrug in the back of the end zone to salute his teammate who had been unceremoniously ejected on a tacky targeting call early in the game. That gave the Buckeyes a 35-21 lead with under seven minutes remaining in the third and they would push the lead to 38-21 just inside the fourth quarter after a Sean Nuernberger field goal.
Kizer and Fuller would create their own highlight reel with 12 minutes left when Kizer found Fuller near the right sideline on a curl route and Fuller turned Conley around and Fuller sped up the right sideline untouched for an 81-yard score and brought the Irish to within 10. But that was the last touchdown scored by either team for the rest of the game as the Buckeyes tacked on two more Nuernberger field goals and walked out of the desert with a 44-28 win.
The game kicks off at 7:30 p.m. and will air on ABC.