From now until preseason camp begins in August, Land-Grant Holy Land will be writing articles on a different topic each week. This week is all about records, those that have been broken, those that could be broken, and those that will never be broken. You can catch up with all the Thematic Week content here and all our Articles about “Broken Records” here.
The Ohio State Buckeyes did something on September 27, 1930 that not only hasn’t been done since, but seems unlikely to ever be done again. That 1930 team, which played the first September game at Ohio Stadium, defeated Mount Union, 59-0. Ohio State has won other games by that score, including a notable Big Ten title game, but that wasn’t the most notable thing fans saw that day.
The Buckeyes scored nine touchdowns that day, starting with a score by Wes Fesler. But again, nine touchdowns is something Ohio State has done and surpassed since then.
Ohio State rushed for an incredible 718 yards in the Pop Warner offense that coach Sam Willaman installed. Not only has no OSU team been able to match that feat, but there hasn’t even been a case where the Buckeyes have come within 200 yards of that mark. Ohio State hasn’t been closer than 517 rushing yards in any game since, and the Buckeyes have done it twice.
Although the innovation of the forward pass has made the achievement more unlikely, there have been many OSU offenses that have not come close. Some of those offenses were powerful and included many players who have written their names in the history books.
Some of those gigantic teams existed in the modern (adjacent) era. The 1974 team, featuring Archie Griffin, Jeff Logan, Cornelius Greene and Pete Johnson, is the last Ohio State team to “threaten” the record, tying for second in school history with 517 rushing yards at home against Illinois in a 49-7 victory on November 2 of that year.
Okay, that was 50 years ago. That’s a long time, but at least it’s in living memory, if only for those of us who were kids at the time.
Two years later, Ohio State ran all over Michigan State for 463 yards in the season opener on September 11, 1976, in a 49-21 home victory. That’s the fifth-most rushing yards in a game for an Ohio State team. The Buckeyes came “close” again in 1978, rushing for 511 yards in a 63-20 home win over Northwestern, the fourth-highest total rushing yards in a game.
Looking a little closer today, the Buckeyes rushed for a season-high 215 yards in 2023. It was one of only two games in which Ohio State rushed for more than 200 yards as a team last season. The high mark in 2022 was 340 rushing yards against Indiana. In 2021, Ohio State rushed for 323 yards against Tulsa.
The Buckeyes began the decade with a 399-yard performance against Northwestern in the Big Ten Championship. Trey Sermon ran for most of that — a school record 331 yards by an individual running back. It’s hard to imagine how high the total could have been if Ryan Day had committed to rushing earlier in the game. But even if he had, it’s not likely the 2020 Buckeyes would have done much more than rank among the top five rushing teams in school history that day.
The last time an Ohio State team rushed for more than 400 yards in a game was in the 2016 matchup with Rutgers, racking up 410 yards on the ground in a 58-0 victory. The Buckeyes rushed for 441 at Illinois in 2013 (a 60-35 win), marking the second time that season that Ohio State eclipsed the 400-yard mark, joining the 408 rushing yards gained in a 63-yard home win. 14 over Penn State in October. 26, 2013.
What all of these numbers mean is that it is extremely rare for a forward passing team to surpass 400 yards rushing in modern college football. Ohio State hasn’t reached 500 since 1978, and hasn’t reached 600 outside of that win over the Purple Raiders in 1930, proceeding to rack up an additional 118 yards on the way to 718.
Fesler was named an All-American for the third consecutive season and was named Big Ten MVP following Ohio State’s 5-2-1 season.
While it’s foolish to speak in absolute terms, it simply doesn’t seem believable that a modern Ohio State team would ever see 700+ yard rushing performances. Maybe some future odd OSU team can do it one day if passing is banned again, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
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