I was reading an article the other day regarding the best college football teams over the last 50 years. (Note that this was prior to the 2019-2020 season). To me, it wasn't shocking at all that Ohio State was #1 on the list. Ohio State has a winning percentage of 0.781 (Second highest is also unsurprising with Oklahoma with a 0.768 %). 

This stat really got me thinking about all sports, not just college football, is there another team in any league that has nailed HC hires like Ohio State has? Really an ode to the athletic department, because there is a perception that hiring coaches is easy when you have a great history, because you can just cherry pick the best assistants from the past. But that is absolutely not true. Yes, some hires have been no-brainers, but OSU has taken risks, when a safer alternative was available. These risks have panned out in tremendous fashion. 

• Woody Hayes - Obviously we know how great he was, but some may not recall that this hire was met with tremendous controversy. The Athletic Department was dead set on hiring Woody, a relatively unknown coach at the time,  prior to the 1951 season. Howevr, other "well-known" coaches submitted an application for the job. OSU didn't waver, and rejected these applications and went with Woody. Backlash ensued, but Woody quickly put those concerns in the rear-view. Safer alternative - Paul Brown (Yes, that Paul Brown was rejected). 
• Earle Bruce - This falls in the no brainer category. Bruce having coached on Woody's staff for 5 seasons, also had success at Iowa State (major accomplishment at the time). As crazy as it sounds, the "9 and 3" years of Earle may have been the "dark ages" of OSU football in the modern era. 
• John Cooper - This one took some major balls. And I get it, he failed massively in The Game, and in Bowl appearances. But you can't discredit the importance of Cooper to OSU football today. As the only OSU HC coach in modern history with no previous ties to OSU, Cooper put OSU recruiting on the map. It took a few years, but by the mid-90s, Ohio State was fielding arguably the most talented teams in CFB. Unfortunately, Cooper failed to take advantage of this talent, but nonetheless, set OSU up for even greater years ahead. 
• Jim Tressel - If you lived more than 50 miles from Youngstown, you probably said "who the hell is that?" We all know OSU had some other choices at the time, but took a flyer on the super successful FCS HC. In year 2, Tress took a team largely stacked with talent from Cooper, and did the two things Coop failed to do multiple times. Safer alternatives include Bob Stoops and Glen Mason. 
• Urban Meyer - No brainer. Stars just seemed to align on this one. By Week 1 of the 2011 season, with Urban in the booth, rumblings had already started that he was going to be the next OSU coach. I don't know if he had those intentions in that moment, but it panned out nonetheless. Losing to Michigan for the 1st time in nearly a decade sucked, but learning UFM was going to be the next OSU coach, the following monday, took the sting out of it. So much so, my dad let me skip school. 
• Ryan Day - Can OSU really hire a guy with 0 HC experience, outside of 3 interim games? Sure can, and boy it is looking good. Yes he only has 1 year in, and did it with UFM players, but his recruiting is off the charts right now. We didn't get a definitive list of "other options", but it is probably safe to say experienced HC's Matt Campbell, Luke Fickell, and Mike Vrabel could have been included in the search. 

I don't follow every single sport, but I'm hard pressed to find a team with better lineage over 70 years. The "blue bloods" of the sport have came and gone due to bad coaching hires. It is an inexact science, but OSU is making it look like 2+2=4.