The Athletic has had two articles in the past five months which describe Ohio State as “the most recession-proof program in college football” and explain why that is the case.

Below is a fascinating chart that was published in the first article as well as a link to the most recent one.   I guess the one surprise for me in the chart was the omission of LSU but I guess that has to do with the criteria which are built around the overall rankings since 1951.  Obviously LSU would be high on the list if we were looking at just the past quarter century.

Most-ranked teams since 1951
                                                    Ranked              Top 10             Losing                         
                                                                                                  seasons

Ohio State                                      82.5%                60.5%            4
Oklahoma                                       75.8%                53.1%            7
Alabama                                         73.5%                53.6%            10
Michigan                                         73.3%                43.2%            11
Notre Dame                                    69.1%                44.3%            11
USC                                                67.3%               40.9%             9
Texas                                              64.3%                39.4%            12
Nebraska                                        62.4%                45.2%            18
Penn State                                      61.2%.                37.1%.           6
Georgia                                           57.8%                 32.6%            13

AP poll data via College Poll Archive; losing seasons via Stathead

By the way, there is some very interesting analysis by another B1G coach on the strengths and weaknesses of this year’s squad vs last year’s in the article just published: 

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6927426/2025/12/30/ohio-state-college-f...