Since the turn of the century, many things have changed in college football. The whole way in which national champions have changed three times since the year 2000. The Ohio State football program has changed since that time period, as well.
The Ohio State Buckeyes have won three national championships since 2002 and played for three more. Despite having some of the best teams in the 21st century, the Buckeyes only had three total teams on The Athletic's list of the 25 best teams since the turn of the century.
Two of those teams are wildly underrated because they both were national championship-winning teams. The 2024 team that won the national title last year didn't even make the list. Still, Ohio State football fans will not be happy with where the other Buckeye teams on this list sit.
The Athletic got the ranking of the best Ohio State football teams since 2000 very wrong
According to them, the 2014 team that won the national championship with their third-string quarterback is only the 24th-best team. This is despite the fact that they lost just one game and took down Alabama and Oregon en route to winning the first four-team College Football Playoff.
The 14-0 undefeated 2002 national championship team that beat perhaps the greatest team ever assembled, Miami, is listed just 19th. Neither of these two teams is listed as the best Buckeye team in the last 25 years. That honor goes to the 2019 Ohio State football team.
While I agree with that fact, the 2019 team is listed just 14th on the list. That means that despite winning three titles in 25 years, the Buckeyes don't have a single team in the top 13 on this list. That seems to be wrong if you're trying to get the best teams of all time in there.
Had the 2019 team not gotten the Fiesta Bowl taken away from them by the referees, there's a chance that it could have been the best team of them all. Instead, they never got the chance to show that against a really good LSU team.