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Hello and welcome to another edition of Buckeye Historian from Cus Words Sports!
Ohio State got its first Big Ten victory over Northwestern in 1913 — and many more after that.
Here’s a closer look at the series between the Buckeyes and Wildcats as Northwestern prepares to invade Ohio Stadium this weekend.
We also review every two-game losing streak Ohio State has endured in the middle of a season in the last 40 years, how they responded and how those seasons ended up.
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Ohio State leads the all-time series 66-14-1.
Buckeyes won the first five games in the series 58-0 in 1913, and they have won the last 11 since an overtime loss in Evanston in 2004.
Ohio State last lost to the Wildcats at Ohio Stadium in 1971. That is the only Northwestern win in Columbus since 1963.
Their best stretch in the series came from 1936-43 when they were 4-3-1.
Notable Ohio State-Northwestern games
1970: No. 2 Ohio State 24, No. 20 Northwestern 10
Rex Kern and John Brockington led the Buckeyes to 21 unanswered points, erasing a 9-0 halftime deficit. Kern scored on runs of six and three yards while Brockington also had a touchdown and did much of the heavy lifting. The senior All-American fullback toted the ball a then-school record 42 times for 161 yards, and Kern finished with 74 yards on 15 carries. Stan White led the defense with 16 total tackles while Mike Sensibaugh had a pair of interceptions.
1994: No. 20 Ohio State 17, Northwestern 15
Ohio State spotted Northwestern a 9-0 halftime lead, but Eddie George carried a career-high 39 times for 206 yards rushing as the Buckeyes rallied to win. George scored a touchdown on the 6-yard run on the final play of the third quarter for the last of Ohio State’s 17 unanswered points in that stanza.
Northwestern scored a touchdown to cut the lead to two with 5:01 left in the fourth quarter, but Matt Finkes stopped Wildcat Dennis Lundy two yards behind the line of scrimmage on the ensuing two-point conversion attempt to preserve the lead. Lorenzo Styles Sr. led the Buckeye defense with 15 tackles, and Bobby Hoying and Joey Galloway hooked up for a 13-yard touchdown pass midway through the third quarter to begin the Buckeyes’ comeback.
2001: Ohio State 38, No. 14 Northwestern 20
On the night Les Horvath’s No. 22 was retired, a then-record crowd of 104,042 watched another Ohio State halfback star in the Horseshoe.
On the second play of the game, senior Jonathan Wells ran 71 yards for a touchdown to set the tone for the night. With time winding down in the opening stanza, Ohio State strong safety Mike Doss returned a fumble 30 yards for a touchdown, setting off a 31-point explosion that covered the next two quarters.
Wells scored two more touchdowns and Lydell Ross found the end zone, too. Late in the third quarter, Mike Nugent booted a 44-yard field goal to give the Buckeyes their largest lead at 38-7, and Wells finished with 179 yards on 22 carries and three touchdowns.
2005: No. 10 Ohio State 48, No. 25 Northwestern 7
A year after their first loss to the Wildcats since 1971, Ohio State fell behind 7-0 only to score 48 unanswered points. After Northwestern’s impressive opening drive featuring former Ohio Mr. Football Tyrell Sutton, Troy Smith ran for a pair of touchdowns to put the Buckeyes on top 14-7 by the end of the first quarter. They extended the lead to 14 points when senior linebacker A.J. Hawk returned a blocked punt eight yards for a touchdowns.
Antonio Pittman led the rushing attack with 132 yards and a touchdown on 18 carries while Smith ran for 75 yards and and threw for another 77. Maurice Wells added 70 yards rushing and a touchdown and Erik Haw found the end zone as well in the fourth quarter.
2018: No. 6 Ohio State 45, No. 21 Northwestern 24
One week after stunning Michigan to steal a bid to the Big Ten Championship Game, Ohio State went to Indianapolis for a surprising matchup with Northwestern.
The Buckeyes never trailed, but they did have a hard time shaking coach Pat Fitzgerald’s Wildcats, who won the Big Ten West despite going just 8-4 in the regular season.
Ohio State led 24-7 at halftime, but Northwestern scored twice in the third quarter to draw within three points. Then Dwayne Haskins connected with Chris Olave for a 29-yard touchdown to extend the lead back to 10, and two more Haskins TD tosses — to Johnnie Dixon and J.K. Dobbins — in the fourth quarter put the game away.
Haskins finished with 499 passing yards, then a school record, and five touchdown passes. Dixon caught seven passes for 129 yards while Parris Campbell Jr. caught seven passes for 89 yards and Terry McLaurin caught a pair of touchdown passes. Malik Harrison led the defense with 10 tackles while Chase Young had three sacks and forced a fumble.
2020: No 4 Ohio State 22, No. 14 Northwestern 10
A strange season gave way to a weird Big Ten Championship game. The Wildcats led 10-6 at the half as Ohio State struggled on offense, totaling just 50 yards rushing and 60 through the air. In the second half, Ryan Day finally decided to trust his running game and Trey Sermon ran wild.
After getting just two carries in the first 30 minutes, Sermon got the ball 27 times in the second half, and the Wildcats were powerless to stop him. Sermon finished with a school-record 331 yards on 29 carries when all was said and done and Ohio State won the Big Ten Championship Game for the fifth and final time. Justin Hilliard led the Ohio State defense with nine tackles, including two for loss, and an interception.
Notes and observations
No. 12 Ohio State’s 7-0 win over No. 7 Northwestern in 1937 was the first Buckeye win over a team ranked in the Associated Press poll.
Northwestern snapped a 24-game losing streak in the series with a double-overtime 33-27 win over the Buckeyes in 2004, and Jim Tressel’s OSU teams responded emphatically by outscoring the Wildcats 205-34 in the following four meetings.
Regarding school records from the series, the Buckeyes tied the school’s modern single-game record for rushing touchdowns against Northwestern twice, in 1978 and ’80.
John Brockington set an Ohio State record with 42 carries against the Wildcats (for 161 yards) in 1970, a mark broken two years later by Champ Henson when he had 44 rushing attempts for 153 yards at Northwestern.
Tim Sawicki set an Ohio State record for tackle-for-loss yardage against the Wildcats in 1979 with four stops behind the line of scrimmage adding up to 49 yards lost. The four TFLs tied the school record at the time.
Cornerback Ted Provost tied the official school record with three interceptions in a game against Northwestern in 1967.
A note on Ohio State losing streaks
If you’re on the younger side of Ohio State fandom, you might not have experienced a two-game losing streak in the middle1 of a season before.
It last happened 15 years ago, and that skid in 2011 was the first since 2004 when the Buckeyes dropped three games in a row in October.
How this team responds to such adversity will be their legacy, but how have they done in similar situations over the last 40 years?
Glad you asked…
2011: The Buckeyes 6-3 then lost their last three regular season games and the Gator Bowl to Florida
2004: Lost two in a row and then a third in October. They were 3-3 but then won three in a row before losing to Purdue. They finished the season by beating Michigan and winning the Alamo Bowl. The Buckeyes then won the Big Ten the following six seasons in a row.
1999: They were 6-3 then lost their last three (at Michigan State, at home to Illinois and at Michigan). That left them ineligible for a bowl.
1992: Lost two in a row in early October to fall to 3-2 then beat Northwestern 31-7 to start a five-game winning streak. The Buckeyes tied Michigan 13-13 to end the regular season then lost to Georgia in the Citrus Bowl.
1990: Lost two in a row early to No. 18 USC and No. 13 Illinois then tied No. 22 Indiana before going on a five-game winning streak that ended with a 16-13 loss to No. 15 Michigan. The winning streak included a 27-26 upset win at No. 6 Iowa that got them back in the Big Ten title race, but the tie prevented them from capitalizing.
1988: Coach John Cooper’s first team lost three in a row to start October and ended up going 4-6-1.
1987: Earle Bruce’s last team was 5-1-1 before losing three in a row to Michigan State, Wisconsin and Iowa. Bruce was fired, but the Buckeyes rallied to upset Michigan 23-20 to close out the regular season.
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1 The Buckeyes have lost back-to-back games multiple other times over the last couple of decades if we include the Michigan game and bowl game or Big Ten Championship Game and bow game.
