1998 and 2019 were two of the best, most complete Ohio State teams I have seen in my lifetime. As all know, neither won it all. 2002 was magical and seemingly came out of nowhere. 2014 had the early season loss to VT but ended with a spectacular 3-game finish behind a backup QB.

My question is - if you could take a title earned in Ohio State's history and rewrite history's results to reassign it to a year we didn't earn one but had a damn good team, would you? It would be all too easy to use recency bias and steal from Paul Brown and Woody's collection to provide for the past few decades, so let's say the most a title could move would be 10 years either direction in time.

As much as I loved the 1996 and 1998 teams, 2002 was simply too magical to touch. The nerve-racking gauntlet of tight win after tight win made the climb so memorable. The comeback and finish vs TTUN not only was great in the lens of 2002, but seemed so much bigger after the pains of 1993, 1995, and 1996. The finale against a giant like The U at that time was almost unimaginable. 2002 stays as is for me.

2014's conclusion was spectacular (as were some of the key games at PSU, at MSU, at Minnesota, etc.). The Big Ten title game, Sugar Bowl win over Bama, and NCG have to be the three most exciting consecutive football games in OSU's esteemed history. I'd be tempted to retain the Sugar Bowl win over Bama as the cherry on the 2014 season and concede a loss to Oregon to move the national title accolade to a 2019 team that beats the replay refs in the semifinal and then delivers against LSU. 

Outside of the recent era, I might shift 1970 to 1973 or 1975 since the Super Sophs got one in '68, but the great teams in the mid 70s never did.