The countdown of Ohio State's top 25 plays from the last 25 years continues.
Tuesday's Part 2 of our five-part series highlighted two of the most talented open-field playmakers in Buckeye history, with two memorable turnovers forced in big moments on the defensive side of the ball. Be sure to catch up on those rankings and Part 1 if you haven't already. A quick recap of plays 25 through 16 revealed in those two parts, with the team and season attached:
25. Marvin Harrison Jr.'s acrobatic sideline snag (Indiana, 2022)
24. Chris Gamble's pick-six (Penn State, 2002)
23. Noah Brown's around-the-back catch (Oklahoma, 2016)
22. J.T. Barrett to Marcus Baugh to complete 18-point comeback (Penn State, 2017)
21. Justin Fields delivers bomb to Chris Olave through injury (Clemson, 2020)
20. Braxton Miller hits the B button (Virginia Tech, 2015)
19. Ted Ginn Jr. embarrasses Michigan's punt team (Michigan, 2004)
18. Steve Miller's College Football Playoff thick-six (Alabama, 2014)
17. Jaxon Smith-Njigba stamps record-breaking performance (Utah, 2021)
16. Ryan Shazier forces a Montee Ball fumble at the goal line (Wisconsin, 2012)
Here in Part 3, we're at the part of the countdown where the stakes get higher, with tide-changing and game-saving plays in The Game and the postseason. Any list like this is going to feature a lot of subjectivity when compiling. Still, we did our best to rank each moment based on its importance, quality in a vacuum, the stage on which it occurred, how iconic it has become and how impactful it was to winning that game.
If you enjoy this series, be sure to check out our five-part countdown of the Top 25 Games of the Quarter-Century, too.
15. Nov. 18, 2006: Antonio Pittman leaves Michigan in the dust
A play from The Game of the Century was always going to crack our top 15; the difficulty was in picking the best one with so much competition for this list. Freshman running back Beanie Wells had a 52-yard touchdown run. Quarterback Troy Smith executed one of the greatest play-action fakes ever seen to hit wide receiver Ted Ginn Jr. for a 39-yard score.
But Pittman's jaunt won the day as the biggest and most consequential of the three, handing the Buckeyes back a two-score lead in the third quarter.
Ohio State and Michigan entered ranked as the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the nation. Jim Tressel's Buckeyes and Lloyd Carr's Wolverines faced off in Ohio Stadium for a 3:30 kickoff with the Big Ten Title and a berth to the BCS national championship game on the line.
With Ohio State leading 28-24 with 8:13 remaining in the third quarter, Smith led his team to the line of scrimmage on second-and-1 at his own 44-yard line. Pittman took a handoff from Smith and raced toward the middle of the offensive line. The Buckeyes' offensive line cleared a massive hole for the running back from Akron in the middle of Michigan's defensive front. Pittman went untouched for 10 yards, slipped one defender and dashed the rest of the way for a 56-yard touchdown.
Ohio State took a 35-24 lead, and the momentum of that moment was enough for the Buckeyes to cling to a 42-39 victory, with the help of one more Smith touchdown pass to Brian Robiskie. At that point, Pittman's run was the third-longest for an Ohio State player against Michigan behind Jonathan Wells' 76-yard run in 1999 and Paul Warfield's 69-yard touchdown run in 1961.
The Buckeyes faced Florida in the following national championship game but fell 41-14.
14. Jan. 3, 2003: Buckeyes clinch the national championship
This is the play that broke Ohio State's 32-year national championship drought, that finally paid off the heartache of so many would-be title runs that came up a game short in the 1970s and 1990s.
The 2002 Ohio State squad survived close calls against Cincinnati, Wisconsin, Penn State, Purdue, Illinois and Michigan, but No. 1 Miami represented a far tougher task. The Hurricanes entered the 2003 BCS national championship riding a 34-game winning streak and were an 11.5-point favorite over the Buckeyes at kickoff.
The Buckeyes stuffed three consecutive Miami plays from inside the 2-yard line to force 4th-and-goal at the 1. After 60 climactic minutes and two overtimes of drama, Ohio State was one snap away from the program's seventh national championship.
The Hurricanes lined up with three wide receivers and a running back behind quarterback Ken Dorsey, who was under center. The Buckeyes had four defensive linemen down, with linebackers Robert Reynolds and Cie Grant standing on the edges of the line.
At the snap, Miami quarterback Ken Dorsey dropped straight back, but Grant blew by the right side of the Hurricanes' offensive line unblocked. Within five steps, Grant grabbed Dorsey's jersey and flung the signal-caller around and to the ground. As Dorsey was spinning, he tossed the football toward the end zone, where it landed harmlessly near Matt Wilhelm.
Other plays from this game will rank higher on our list of the top 25 plays of the quarter-century. But the pure emotion of this incompletion and what it meant after 32 years of close calls, disappointment and unfulfilled expectations warranted its placement here. And it also concluded a goal-line stand that won a national championship.
13. Jan. 10, 2025: TreVeyon Henderson shocks Longhorns
TREVEYON HENDERSON HOUSE CALL pic.twitter.com/gRXJUxh4Cn
— Eleven Warriors (@11W) January 11, 2025
Momentum is a fickle mistress, and the lady had completely abandoned Ohio State in the College Football Playoff semifinals against Texas this past January.
The eighth-seeded Buckeyes led the fifth-seeded Longhorns for the bulk of the first half after scoring on their opening drive, but self-inflicted wounds and a stingy Texas defense denied multiple opportunities to build on the 7-0 advantage. Then the Longhorns finally broke through Ohio State's defensive steel curtain with a passing touchdown to tie the contest with 29 seconds remaining in the first half.
Getting the ball back at its own 25-yard line, the most Ohio State could do was draw up a quick chunk play to try and work toward a last-second score. A draw play or a quick pass or, in this instance, a screen.
Texas sent four pass rushers and bailed the rest of its defense, leaving TreVeyon Henderson and a trio of blockers. Henderson made two cuts to set up the defenders assigned to guard Tegra Tshabola and center Carson Hinzman, found a seam and hit the jets.
There was no grounding the speedster from there. Henderson sprinted 75 yards to the end zone for a 14-7 lead, courting lady momentum back to Ohio State's side. Fans at that time probably had difficulty imagining a more memorable play to come in the contest. Before the 28-14 Buckeye win was over, they'd see one. But that's for a later part of our top 25.
12. Nov. 30, 2013: Tyvis Powell to the rescue
Ohio State's then-perfect 2013 campaign was brought to the brink by the one team that the Buckeyes could least stand to spoil everything. One year before the establishment of the College Football Playoff, closing the regular season with a loss to Michigan would have likely meant the end of Ohio State's national championship aspirations.
Despite going on the road, No. 3 Ohio State was a 16-point favorite over a 7-4 Michigan squad unranked in the AP Poll and fresh off a loss to Iowa. But the Buckeyes' defense seemed determined to keep the Wolverines afloat. Michigan quarterback Devin Gardner passed for 451 yards and four touchdowns as wide receiver Jeremy Gallon torched Ohio State's secondary with nine receptions for 175 yards and a score.
After a shootout that swung the lead back and forth between the two teams, Gardner connected on a 2-yard touchdown toss to wide receiver Devin Funchess that cut the score to 42-41 with 32 seconds remaining. Michigan coach Brady Hoke chose to settle The Game then and there with a two-point conversion try.
Enter Tyvis Powell. Gardner took a three-step drop and fired instantly to wide receiver Drew Dileo just inside the goal line. Powell spotted Dileo's route from his underneath zone and triggered on the pass. The football hit him square in the chest as he jumped the play.
"Tyvis Powell saves the season," ABC's Brad Nessler famously proclaimed.
Ohio State, unfortunately, followed Powell's heroics with losses to Michigan State in the Big Ten championship and Clemson in the Orange Bowl, possibly the only fact preventing this from being a top-10 play of the last 25 years. Powell's NFL career might have only lasted three years, but the memories of this play will last for the lifetime of all observers.
11. Jan. 3, 2003: Michael Jenkins converts do-or-die 4th-and-14
Trailing 24-17 in the first overtime of the BCS national championship game, Ohio State faced a dire 4th-and-14 at the Miami 29-yard line. Passing was a struggle all night against the Hurricanes' elite defense, with Buckeye quarterback Craig Krenzel finishing a meager 7-of-21 for 122 yards, no touchdowns and two interceptions. But now he needed 14 in one throw.
Krenzel took a shotgun snap, stepped up in the pocket and threw a bullet toward the near sideline for wide receiver Michael Jenkins. Jenkins, who made clutch catches throughout the 2002 title campaign, snapped off his comeback route to create separation one yard beyond the chains. Krenzel hit Jenkins in the stomach, Jenkins secured the catch and was shoved out of bounds with a 16-yard gain and a first down to keep Ohio State’s championship hopes alive.
The Buckeyes faced another do-or-die fourth-down conversion four plays later on a 4th-and-3 from the Miami 5-yard line. A quick pass to the right pylon for Chris Gamble fell incomplete, but after a delay, a referee flagged Hurricanes defensive back Glenn Sharpe for pass interference in one of the most controversial calls in NCAA history. Miami had already started celebrating what it believed was a national championship victory.
Once the pandemonium died down, the Buckeyes tied the game on a quarterback sneak from Krenzel on third-and-goal. Ohio State scored a touchdown in the second overtime, then held the Hurricanes on the goal line to pull off the massive title-game upset.
None of it would have been possible if Jenkins didn't find a way on fourth-and-14.
