5 lessons for Ohio State from the Buckeyes' last loss to an in-state team -- 104 years ago

Oberlin upset Ohio State in 1921, and even a loss a century old can tell you something.

The front page of the Columbus Citizen after Ohio State’s last football loss to an Ohio team. (Photo courtesy or Oberlin University archives)

COLUMBUS — Ohio State’s last loss to a team from Ohio was a 7-6 home defeat to Oberlin on Oct. 8, 1921. It’s the kind of thing that gets brought up whenever Ohio State plays an in-state team, like the Buckeyes do Saturday against Ohio University.

So yeah, you may have heard about this before. And yeah, it’s been 104 years. But lessons are lessons. So here are five Ohio State can can take from 1921.

1. Don’t motivate an opponent through humiliation: Ohio State obliterated Oberlin in 1916 in a 128-0 victory that the Springfield News Sun wrote was “claimed as the world’s intercollegiate record for football scores.” A list back then of the biggest wins by one Ohio college over another had 85 points as the second-largest winning score ever — an 128 is a lot more than that.

   It’s still the largest victory in OSU history, never to be topped. But it was to be avenged.

   You might look back and think teams were dropping triple digits on each other all the time in the old days — for instance, Georgia Tech beat Cumberland College 222-0 in 1916. It wasn’t unheard of. But the Buckeyes rolling well past 100 still turned heads.

   The Cleveland Plain Dealer ran a large cartoon a few days after the 1916 game featuring other Ohio colleges laughing at Oberlin, which was pictured as beaten up by the Buckeyes and crawling for mercy.

   So a 128-0 win to a 7-6 loss in five years to the same opponent is quite a swing. As Ohio State’s student newspaper, The Lantern, wrote after the 1921 loss, it had been a long time coming.

   “The story of Ohio State’s defeat last Saturday probably goes back five years to the time when the crowds surged away from a tilt on Ohio Field in which Ohio State was the conqueror of the Ohio Conference school 128 to 0. Returning to its own domain, Oberlin set itself to the task of preparing revenge.”

   So dropping 100 might sound cool. But it could come back on you.

   

   Oberlin was mocked in print after a 128-0 loss to Ohio State five years prior to its win over the Buckeyes. (Photo from Cleveland Plain Dealer archives)

2. Respect young opposing coaches: T. Nelson Metcalf played at Oberlin, but he wasn’t around for the 1916 loss. He was coaching at Columbia at the time. He was back coaching Oberlin for the 1921 matchup, and that upset win helped propel him into a long career in athletics. He’d go on to serve as the athletic director at Iowa State and the University of Chicago for 33 years — but when he beat the Buckeyes he was barely out of his 20s.

   When Metcalf was hired as an assistant football coach at Minnesota three months after beating the Buckeyes, they loved the guy.

   “The Oberlin man, they say, is as clean as a hound’s tooth morally, has a splendid personality and is a positive leader among college men,” wrote the Minneapolis Star.

   Then, and now, beating Ohio State can make your career. So tip of the cap to first-year Ohio coach Brian Smith.

3. A big season the year before assures nothing: Ohio State made its first Rose Bowl at the end of the 1920 season as the champion of what was then known as the Western Conference.

   Ten months later, Oberlin beat a team that had just been to Pasadena.

   Rose Bowl to Oberlin loss in less than a year. On your toes, national champs.

4. Watch the weather: “Buckeye play was ragged at times,” wrote the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “The Ohio State lacked much of the zip which characterized their work last season.”

   “The Buckeyes were unable to get their plays off rapidly on the slippery field due to last night’s rain.”

   Ahh, Mother Nature, always the great equalizer. Saturday’s forecast is clear, but be aware.

5. Build a stadium: The 1921 season was the last the Buckeyes played at Ohio Field. Various accounts of the loss put the crowd at between 8,000 and 10,000 fans.

   Ohio Stadium opened the next year with a capacity of over 66,000.

   Bigger home-field advantage. And the Buckeyes haven’t lost to an Ohio team in the Shoe.