The first 25 years of the 21st century have been full of iconic games for Ohio State football.
With one quarter of the century now complete entering the 2025 season, we’re taking a look back at Ohio State’s 25 best games of the last 25 years. Each day this week, we’ll reveal five more games on our list as we count down the most iconic Buckeye wins of 2000-24 from No. 25 to No. 1.
While the list is entirely subjective and open for debate, factors we considered when assembling the rankings were how memorable each game was, how exciting each game was to watch, the stakes of each game in terms of opponent and championship implications and their lasting legacies. Only games that Ohio State won and that have been played since the start of the 21st century were considered for inclusion.
Our countdown begins with a trio of thrilling victories that came down to the wire and two memorable routs of Michigan.
25. Oct. 20, 2012: Ohio State 29, Purdue 22 (OT)
Ohio State went 12-0 in Urban Meyer’s first season as head coach, but it had to survive a few close calls on its way to an undefeated season. The closest of those calls came when the Buckeyes welcomed Purdue to Ohio Stadium for their eighth game of the season.
Trailing 20-14 late in the third quarter, Ohio State appeared destined for defeat when Braxton Miller took a big hit that knocked him out of the game. Purdue took an eight-point lead when it forced a safety on Ohio State’s next possession, and the Buckeyes’ next drive after that ended with Kenny Guiton throwing an interception to Landon Feichter.
But when Ohio State got the ball back with just 37 seconds left on the clock, still down eight with 61 yards to drive, the legend of Kenny G was born.
Guiton started the drive with a 39-yard completion to Devin Smith. He capped the drive with a two-yard touchdown pass to Chris Fields, which he followed with a successful two-point conversion pass to Jeff Heuerman.
Kenny G continued to play his smooth jazz in overtime, completing a 17-yard pass to Jake Stoneburner that set up a go-ahead touchdown run by Carlos Hyde. Ohio State’s defense held Purdue without a first down on its subsequent possession to secure the victory, and the Buckeyes would go on to win their final four games of the season – in which they were banned from the postseason – to complete an undefeated campaign.
Guiton would never become Ohio State’s full-time starting quarterback – though he did set a school record with six touchdown passes in a spot start against Florida A&M in 2013 – but he remains a cult hero in Columbus because of his relief effort against the Boilermakers.
24. Nov. 14, 2009: Ohio State 27, Iowa 24 (OT)
The Big Ten championship was on the line when Ohio State hosted Iowa in its penultimate game of the 2009 regular season. Both teams entered the game with 5-1 conference records, putting the conference’s Rose Bowl berth on the line with the Buckeyes needing a win over the Hawkeyes to secure an outright Big Ten title one week later at Michigan.
The de facto Big Ten championship game lived up to the hype. With the game tied 10-10 entering the fourth quarter, Ohio State surged ahead by two scores on touchdown runs by Boom Herron and Brandon Saine. But Iowa’s Derrell Johnson-Koulianos responded with a 99-yard kickoff return touchdown. Devin Barclay missed a 47-yard field goal on Ohio State’s next series, and James Vandenberg led a game-tying 70-yard touchdown drive for the Hawkeyes to send the game to overtime.
Ohio State’s defense did its job to start overtime, with Anderson Russell intercepting Vandenberg after a 3rd-and-16 sack by Doug Worthington. Barclay made up for his fourth-quarter miss by converting a 39-yard game-winning field goal, kicking the Buckeyes to the Big Ten championship.
Fifteen completed seasons later, Barclay’s field goal remains the last game-winning kick in Ohio Stadium. Noah Ruggles’ 19-yard make in the 2021-22 Rose Bowl against Utah (more to come on that game later this week) is Ohio State’s only other game-winning field goal in the last 15 years.
23. Nov. 30, 2019: Ohio State 56, Michigan 27
Ryan Day’s first – and to this point still only – victory over Michigan as Ohio State’s head coach came in dominant fashion and was headlined by perhaps the signature moment of Justin Fields’ two-year run as the Buckeyes’ quarterback.
Ohio State went off for 577 yards of offense behind the arm of Fields and the feet of J.K. Dobbins as Fields threw for 302 yards and four touchdowns while Dobbins ran for 211 yards and four touchdowns. But the game wasn’t without drama even though Don Brown’s defense had no answer for the Buckeyes’ offense.
The hearts of Buckeye fans skipped a beat when Fields went down grabbing his knee after a hit from Aidan Hutchinson in the third quarter. But after Chris Chugunov took his place for seven plays, Fields ran back onto the field sporting a knee brace and connected with Garrett Wilson on a perfectly placed 30-yard touchdown pass on his first play back in the game, giving the Buckeyes an insurmountable 42-16 lead with less than 19 minutes left on the clock.
The win marked the first time in the history of The Game that Ohio State beat Michigan eight straight times, and it completed a 12-0 regular season in which the Buckeyes won every game by double digits. And while it wasn’t a shocking result at the time, it’s a performance Ohio State hasn’t since been able to replicate against its rival, making this win one that still resonates in the minds of Buckeye fans more than five years later.
22. Sept. 23, 2023: Ohio State 17, Notre Dame 14
Ohio State’s trip to South Bend two years ago ended with one of the quarter-century’s most thrilling finishes and one of its most iconic postgame moments.
The Buckeyes’ offense struggled for most of the game, scoring just one touchdown on its first seven drives, which came on a 61-yard run by TreVeyon Henderson. Notre Dame drove 96 yards for a go-ahead touchdown on its first drive of the fourth quarter, and Ohio State’s hopes of winning the game looked bleak when it got stuffed on 3rd-and-1 and 4th-and-1 running plays on its next drive.
But Ohio State got one more chance to win the game when it got the ball back at the 35-yard line with 1:26 to play. Kyle McCord led the Buckeyes down the field with several clutch completions, including a 23-yard pass to Emeka Egbuka on 3rd-and-10, a 4th-and-7 conversion to Julian Fleming and a 21-yard strike to Egbuka on 3rd-and-19 that set up 1st-and-goal at Notre Dame’s 1-yard line.
Following a pair of incomplete passes, Ohio State had time for just one more play. McCord handed the ball off to Chip Trayanum, who took advantage of Notre Dame inexplicably having only 10 defenders on the field as he followed Cade Stover and the left side of the offensive line into the end zone for a go-ahead touchdown with just one second left on the clock.
As exciting as the finish was, the night’s most memorable moment came after the final whistle when Ryan Day was interviewed on the field. “I’d like to know where Lou Holtz is right now,” Day’s famous quote in response to the former Notre Dame coach questioning the Buckeyes’ physicality during an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show one day earlier, remains Day’s most famous soundbite six years into his tenure as Ohio State’s head coach.
TELL EM, COACH! pic.twitter.com/Se7zs18oHO
— Eleven Warriors (@11W) September 24, 2023
The win in South Bend proved to be the high point of McCord and Trayanum’s Ohio State careers, as McCord transferred to Syracuse and Trayanum transferred to Kentucky after the season. But their game-winning plays on that night at Notre Dame made it a game for Buckeye fans to remember.
21. Nov. 20, 2004: Ohio State 37, Michigan 21
Ohio State entered its 2004 rivalry game against Michigan as a 5-point home underdog. The Buckeyes were just 6-4 on the season while the Wolverines were 9-1 and ranked seventh in the country with their sights set on winning the outright Big Ten championship. But the “throw the records out the window” mantra proved true in this edition of The Game.
After Troy Smith and Anthony Gonzalez connected for a 68-yard touchdown on the game’s opening drive, Michigan scored on each of its first two touchdown drives to take a 14-7 lead. In the second and third quarters, however, Ohio State scored 27 unanswered points to turn the game into a Buckeye rout.
In just his fifth start as a Buckeye, Smith led Ohio State to victory by throwing for 241 yards and two touchdowns while running for 145 yards and another touchdown. Ted Ginn Jr. broke a Big Ten record with his fourth punt return touchdown of the season, running a punt back 82 yards early in the third quarter to make the score 27-14, and the Buckeyes would lead by at least two scores for the rest of the game.
Ohio State’s victory was its third against Michigan in four years under Jim Tressel, and it started a 16-year stretch in which the Buckeyes would lose to the Wolverines just once.
Eleven Warriors researcher Matt Gutridge contributed to this article.
