Got bored today and decided to look up on the results of each season since 1960. It made me realize how close we have been to having more national championships. I would argue OSU is the most consistently good football program in the history of college football. Even though we’re either 1st or 2nd in categories such as wins, All-Americans, draft picks, Heisman, etc., we only have 7 national titles to show for it and only 2 in the past 50 years. Here’s a summary of our almost national titles: 

Loss in national title game: 

- 2006 (41-14 L to Florida)
- 2007 (38-24 L to LSU)
- 2020 (54-24 L to Alabama)

1 loss that prevented us from being crowned national champs: 

- 1972 (finished 10-2, 42-17 L to #1 USC in Rose Bowl, with win would likely split national title with Oklahoma)
- 1975 (finished 11-1, 23-10 L to UCLA, who we beat in the regular season)
- 1979 (finished 11-1, 17-16 L to USC in Rose Bowl
- 1996 (finished 11-1 ranked #2, 13-9 L to UM)

1 loss that prevented us from playing in a title game we could win (up to interpretation):

- 1969 (24-12 L to UM, would have played USC in the Rose Bowl who we thumped the year prior
- 1998 (28-24 L to MSU, would have played Tennessee in BCS title game)
- 2010 (31-18 L to Wisconsin, would have played Auburn in BCS title game)
- 2013 (34-24 L to MSU, would have played FSU in BCS title game
- 2019 (29-23 L to Clemson, would have played LSU in title game)

Honorable Mentions: 

- 1973 (Finished 10-0-1. Ranked #1 nearly the entire season, then a tie with #4 UM drops us to #4? Many systems awarded us the national title, but the University doesn’t claim it)

- 2005 (Lost to #1 Texas and #3 Penn State by a combined 10 points, definitely a national championship caliber team)
- 2012 (You know why)
- 2015 (Super talented team, one bad night against MSU/UM punter dropping a snap kept us from having a chance of repeating as champs)