Jamie Sabau/Getty Images“If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.”
–Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Ohio State is good enough to beat every team on its schedule this year. It’s good enough to be favored each week and good enough to cause genuine shock should it lose. It’s good enough to warrant all the (vast) preseason accolades it’s received.
But winning 25 straight games is a different task entirely, something only special units can do. It’s the type of feat that adds a team to college football lore; and good as they might be, despite a “weak” schedule, these Buckeyes are not part of that discussion.
Still, if Ohio State runs the table this year, it would likely enter the BCS National Championship on a 25-game winning streak. Since 1994 (almost 20 years ago!), only three FBS programs have enjoyed a run that long. They are:
- Miami (2000-2002) – 34
- USC (2003-2005) – 34
- Nebraska (1994-1996) – 26
Those are teams that transcended their eras—the type that will be talked about for decades to come. Their success prompts books to be written and documentaries to be cut. They’re remembered for pounding opponents into submission, making them beg for mercy, then refusing to acquiesce.
Ohio State needed overtime to beat Purdue.
In Columbus.
Here’s a closer look at those three programs, specifically how they fared in the first 12 games of their winning streaks:
| Team | # of Top-16 Opp. | PPG | Opp. PPG | Avg. Win Diff. |
| Miami (2000-2001) | 3 | 42.5 | 12.4 | 30.1 |
| USC (2003-2004) | 2 | 41.6 | 14.8 | 26.8 |
| Nebraska (1994) | 3 | 36.3 | 12.1 | 24.2 |
| Ohio State (2012) | 0 | 37.2 | 22.8 | 14.4 |
Which of those things is not like the others?
Ohio State scores like the teams on that list, but it doesn’t defend like them. It doesn’t even come close—and that was before losing seven starters. If a defense with Jon Hankins and John Simon and Travis Howard let up 49 points to Indiana, how successful can this one really be?
Continue Reading: Ohio State Football: Buckeyes Won’t Go Undefeated in 2013
