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Throughout the year, we will be asking and answering questions about various Ohio State teams, the players, and anything else on our collective minds of varying degrees of importance. If you have a question that you would like to ask, you can tweet us @LandGrant33, or if you need more than 280 characters, send an email HERE.
It’s April, so while spring practice is still going on, our minds are wandering to other football-related topics. With the NFL Draft coming up in a few weeks and us still riding high from the national championship, we are feeling a bit nostalgic, so in our most recent fan survey, we asked Buckeye Nation about some of their favorites from years gone by.
Check out the results below and if your favorite was grossly overlooked, head to the comments at the bottom of the article and let us know.
Question 1: Who is your favorite 21st-century Ohio State top-10 NFL Draft pick?
You could look at these results and assume that there was some sort of recency bias going on with this one, but I think that there is a lot of validity either way. For years, Ohio State fans have heard about how Buckeye quarterbacks couldn’t succeed at the NFL level. And even though that had mostly been empirically true, it still sucked.
Now, not only is C.J. Stroud the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year, but he has led his team to the playoffs in each of his first two seasons, winning a game in each trip.
So, while there are plenty of other incredibly deserving candidates in this category, the fact that C.J. was such an incredibly beloved Buckeye and is now breaking stereotypes in the pros makes him a well-deserving winner.
Question 2: What is your favorite Ohio State national championship team?
Look, I am always going to be partial to Jim Tressel’s national championship, because that was my senior year in college, so of course it has special meaning. For Christmas that year, my parents got me a ticket to the Fiesta Bowl, so I was there to see the Buckeyes beat Miami, and it remains one of the high points of my life.
As I said before, recency bias is real, so this past season’s title being at No. 2 makes sense, but that ‘02 title was so special, because you basically had to go undefeated back in those days, and the Buckeyes won half of their 14 games by a single score, including the last four games of their season.
Every game felt like it was being played on a knife’s edge, and OSU felt like an underdog in a lot of those games (even some of which they were favored in), so for it to end in a BCS title — AND I WAS THERE — is still kind of wild to me. So, for me, that will always be No. 1!
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