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Ohio State Football Forum

Ohio State football fan talk.

2002 or 2014?

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Run_Fido_Run's picture
July 7, 2015 at 8:50am
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Ohio State's 2014 national championship team was a better football team than the 2002 version. Some of you might argue that point, but that's not the question I wanted to ask: Which team - 2002 or 2014 - gave you more total fulfillment as a fan? I.e., for lack of a better term, which team was more epic?

I'm torn on this question.

On the one hand, the raw emotions that I experienced as a fan of the 2002 team surpassed those I felt watching last season - the joys, the ecstasies, the anxieties, the guttural yelps, the feelings of sweet relief and vindication were more intense in 2002. I grew up in the Earle Bruce and John Cooper eras. Bruce was an excellent "in game" coach, but a mediocre recruiter, so he did not have a top 10-caliber team after his initial two seasons (1979 and 1980) at Ohio State. Cooper recruited enough talent for Ohio State to contend for a national title, but his best teams played out like the proverbial Lucy yanking the ball from Charlie Brown. We fans had a lot of pent up emotion going into 2002, which was further intensified by that season's roller coaster ride and by the Buckeyes facing the supposedly unbeatable Hurricanes in the Fiesta Bowl championship game.

On the other hand, the 2002 season had its ungainly aspects - the team would forever be known (very unfairly) as the Luckeyes, which was cemented by The Call (which was the correct call).

In contrast, the 2014 team was a thing of beauty. In terms of pure football appreciation, the 2014 team was more delightful and satisfying to watch. The team made a bunch of jaw-droppingly bad a-- plays that have left an indelible mark in my memory. They beat a Bama program that had been the kingpin of the almighty SEC, exorcising the Buckeyes' "SEC curse" (so, of course, there were very powerful emotions unleashed last season, as well). At the end of the season, there was absolutely no doubt that Ohio State had the nation's best team. Media and public perceptions of the program seemingly changed overnight. If I am around twenty or thirty years from now, I will be quicker to bore teenagers with stories about the legendary 2014 season than I will be to tell them about how the Buckeyes doggedly broke through in 2002.

What about you?            

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