Oregon vs. Ohio State: A history of both programs

The roots of The Ohio State University's football program date back to 1890, when an undergrad's suggestion led Alexander S. Lilley to coach an OSU football program. Lilley coached the team in its inaugural game at Ohio Wesleyan, a victory for the Buckeyes. Its first home game, however, didn't go quite as well, with OSU losing to the University of Wooster 64-0. The team's first home game against rival Michigan, which took place in 1897, fared poorly for the Buckeyes as well, with a 34-0 loss. After trying their hand at hiring coaches with professional experience, the Buckeyes began to see success in the 1910's, winning back-to-back Big Ten championships in 1916 and 1917.

The origins of Oregon Ducks football also date back to the late 19th century, with the team's inaugural game ending in a big 44-3 win over Albany College. Known as the Webfoots until the 1960s, the team saw its first real success in 1916 under coach Hugo Bezdek, going undefeated and claiming its first conference title. The Webfoots would follow that up in 1917 with a trip to the Rose Bowl (then known as the Tournament East-West Football Game), where they defeated the University of Pennsylvania Quakers 14-0.

A young Ohio State program would reach the 1921 Rose Bowl, only to fall to the California Golden Bears 28-0. After a period marked by mostly solid winning seasons after joining the Big Ten in 1913, the Buckeyes would see a number of highs and lows until 1934, with the hire of Francis Schmidt as the team's head coach. A well-established professional with a reputation as an offensive innovator, Schmidt would lead the team to two conference championships during his tenure.

Meanwhile out west, Oregon would see a second Rose Bowl trip in 1920, falling to Harvard 7-6 and not seeing another Bowl Game for 28 years. The Webfoots would see moderate success in the 1920s after luring more established coaches from back East, though nothing lasting. A 1933 campaign led by head coach (and Oregon native) Prince "Prink" Callison saw the team post a 9–1 record, their best until 2001, on the way to a Pacific Conference co-championship. After this high point came diminished returns, and a string of less than impressive leading into WWII saw the school shut down the football program after 1942.

Paul Brown's tenure as the Buckeyes head coach was brief, spanning only from 1941-3, but his impact was undeniable. After Francis Schmidt left the school upon posting a 4–4 record in his last season, Brown jumpstarted the team, going 6–1–1 in his first season. Though the 1942 Buckeyes team saw 22 veteran players depart for military service in WWII, Brown led a team made up of mostly sophomores to a 9–1 record en route to its first national championship. Brown would depart in 1944 after accepting a commission in the Navy, and of course, would later become first head coach of the professional Cleveland team that would be named after him.

Tex Oliver coached the Webfoots prior to their WWII hiatus, and returned to post mediocre records in 1946 and 1947. Nevada's Jim Aiken would be tapped to replace Oliver, who immediately turned things around with the help of talent such future NFL Hall of Famer Norm Van Brocklin. In his second season as head coach, Aiken led Oregon to the Cotton Bowl (the Rose Bowl being given to Cal after the two teams tied as the Pacific Conference co-champs), where the team lost to SMU 21-13. Oregon's fortunes would soon decline, with the team posting two consecutive losing seasons after their Cotton Bowl appearance.

Three head coaches followed Paul Brown, and the team enjoyed some success. Les Horvath became the Buckeyes' first Heisman Trophy winner in 1944 after the team claimed another conference championship, while the Buckeyes would win the 1949 Rose Bowl against Cal not long after. However, 1951 would see the team hire its most storied head coach, the irascible Woody Hayes. After a slow start, Hayes would propel the team to a perfect 10–0 season in 1954, silencing critics and doubters and leading the Buckeyes to their second national championship, and the first of his five eventual championships. Hayes led to the team to unprecedented success in his 26 seasons, though not without a fair share of controversy. In the end, the coach's infamous temper got him fired from Ohio State after he punched an opposing player in the 1978 Gator Bowl.

By the time Len Casanova took over as head coach of the soon-to-be-Ducks, the program was in disarray. Casanova's tenure began with three straight losing season, though he was able to right the ship in 1954 and post the team's first winning season in a half-decade. A 7–4 showing in 1957 earned the Webfoots a trip to the 1958 Rose Bowl, for the first Rose Bowl showing against Ohio State. The No. 2 Webfoots were given virtually no chance to win, but gritted out a 10-7 loss to a Buckeye team expected to dominate. For his efforts, Oregon QB Jack Crabtree became one of only two players to win a sole Player of the Game award. Despite several more successful seasons through the end of Casanova's tenure in 1966, Oregon wouldn't appear in another Rose Bowl for 37 years.

Former Hayes protégé Earle Bruce took the helm after his mentor's dismissal, leading the Buckeyes to a stellar 11–1 season and a conference championship, having inherited a strong team from his predecessor. The Buckeyes would fall to USC in the 1980 Rose Bowl, though, but the next eight seasons would see Bruce's leadership net three more Big Ten championships. A 5-3 bowl record, including two Rose Bowl losses, would dampen Bruce's tenure, but the team performed at a high level throughout his run up to 1987. Bruce helped lead a number of notable assistant coaches that would achieve great success later in their careers, among them future Ohio State coaches Jim Tressel and Urban Meyer, Nick Saban, and Pete Carroll.

The Casanova era ended with a whimper, with the coach's last two seasons below .500; little did the program know what was in store. Casanova's assistant Jerry Frei took the helm for the next five seasons, posting a winning record only once and never reaching a bowl game. Frei would resign in 1972, paving the way for a half-decade of futility under Dick Enright (1972-73) and Don Read (1974-76). Enright suffered from a lack of experience and never quite got a handle of coaching at the college level; he infamously tried to turn Dan Fouts into an option quarterback (the signal caller was not known as a runner). Read's tenure saw Oregon hit its all-time worst losing streak, spanning 14 games, as well as the team's worst loss, a 66-0 drubbing at the hands of Washington. The program was clearly suffering, and the school struggled to find answers.

The Earle Bruce era came to an end after a disappointing 1987 campaign, with the hiring of Arizona State University head coach John Cooper meant to bring the Buckeyes back to glory. Cooper's Buckeyes would experience success as the team entered the 1990s, nabbing three conference championships but only amassing a 3–8 bowl record despite a period of frequent regular season success. Cooper's time as head coach would be marked be disappointments like these, including a dismal 2-10-1 record against hated rival Michigan, and for also blowing two-score lead to unranked Michigan State, which would cost the top-ranked Buckeyes a shot at the national championship. A loss in the 2001 Outback Bowl would cost Cooper his job.

Year after year of disappointments cost the Oregon football program money, money that could potentially lure a big name coach. Bill Walsh would turn the Ducks down for Stanford, and Jim Mora declined a job he felt was a dead end, so the Ducks turned to Oregon State alum and UCLA assistant coach Rich Brooks. 1980 would see a number of scandals rock the program, leading Brooks to tender his resignation; it was declined. A decade of mediocrity gave way to some real progress by the late 1980s, when Brooks lead the team to an 8–4 record in 1989, earning a trip to the Independence Bowl. The team's fortunes ebbed and flowed, but Brooks final season in 1994 proved a memorable swan song; the Ducks earned its best record (9–4) with Brooks at the helm, capped off with a legendary game against the rival Washington Huskies. Having only beaten Washington three times in the past twenty seasons, the Ducks found themselves holding onto to a tenuous 24-20 lead. Washington QB Damon Huard threw a back-breaking pick to Kenny Wheaton in a play forever known to Ducks fans as "The Pick." The team would go on to make a Rose Bowl appearance, only to fall to Penn State 38-20 in Pasadena.

Ohio State under Earle Bruce and John Cooper could be defined as good-but-not-quite-great; teams that consistently performed well, but never making it to a national championship. After Cooper's firing, the Buckeyes nabbed Youngstown State coach Jim Tressel, who had previously served as an assistant coach under Bruce and was lauded for his four Division I-AA National Championships during his Youngstown tenure. Tressel promised a win over rival Michigan in his first season, and delivered, exorcising the demons of his predecessor Cooper's poor record against the Wolverines. A 7–5 debut season was reason for cautious optimism going into Tressel's sophomore season; Tressel's style of play incorporated stout defense and ball control, was seemingly designed to handle close games. But almost no one could expect the success of the 2002 season, when the Buckeyes powered through an undefeated 14–0 season, capped off by a 31-24 defeat of the Miami Hurricanes in the Fiesta Bowl to claim the school's seventh national championship and its first since the Woody Hayes era.

Rich Brooks' Rose Bowl sendoff was a harbinger of things to come for Oregon. Ducks offensive coordinator Mike Bellotti took the reins after Brooks' departure, leading the team to nine consecutive winning seasons and back-to-back Pac-10 Championships in 2000 and 2001. Bellotti's Ducks would post their only losing season in 2004 (5–6), but immediately bounced back in 2005 with a 10–1 regular season and a loss in the Holiday Bowl. Bellotti would continue the team's success, with 2007 hire of offensive coordinator Chip Kelly proving a vital addition and cementing Kelly's succession of Bellotti after the head coach's 2009 resignation. The seeds were sown for a soon-to-be dominant Oregon team moving into the new decade.

The Buckeyes' 2002 championship heralded a new era of Big Ten and BCS dominance, with the team posting winning seasons for the entirety of Tressel's tenure as head coach. After two strong, but underperforming, conference showings in 2003 and 2004, the Buckeyes won five straight conference championships (2005-09), reaching the BCS National Championship in 2006 and 2007. However, the Buckeyes were unable to claim titles in both years, falling to the Florida Gators first and then the LSU Tigers. Still, Tressel's Buckeyes reached a BCS Bowl in each year from 2001-2010, posting a 6–4 record, along with a stellar 106–22 regular season record in that time span.

If Mike Bellotti planted the seeds of Oregon's rise to national prominence, Chip Kelly harvested the crops. Kelly's spread offense worked to great effect during the last years of Bellotti's time at the helm, and Kelly would go on to refine the Ducks' offense into the much-feared system it is today. After a rocky debut loss against Boise State, marred by Oregon RB LeGarrette Blount punching a Broncos player on live TV, Kelly's Ducks went on to go 10–1 through the rest of the season, earning the first of four conference straight conference titles. However, their matchup with Jim Tressel's Buckeyes in the 2010 Rose Bowl ended in defeat.

Undaunted, the Ducks roared back in 2010 with a 12–0 record, earning them a BCS National Championship Game against Auburn, their first ever bid for the title. After managing to tie the game at 19 with 2:33 remaining, the Tigers drove 73 yards up the field to kick the game-winning field goal as time expired. Despite the loss, it was clear: The Ducks were here to stay.

Tressel's success with the Buckeyes would continue abated through 2010, when the team won the Sugar Bowl over Arkansas, marking its first win over an SEC opponent in ten tries. However, the win would later be vacated after the NCAA suspended five OSU players for receiving improper benefits. Dubbed "Tattoogate" due to allegations that the players signed autographs for free tattoos (among other violations), OSU suspended Tressel for his part in the scandal, alleging the coach knew of the violations but failed to report them. Tressel's original two-game suspension was later upped to five games, and the coach resigned on May 30, 2011, the most successful of any OSU coach since the legendary Woody Hayes.

OSU decided to vacate all victories from the 2010 season to make good with the NCAA, and promoted assistant head coach Luke Fickell to interim head coach after Tressel's resignation. The team, reeling from the previous season's incident, went 6–6 in the 2011 regular season and lost to the Florida Gators in the 2012 Gator Bowl.

After the reformation of the Pac-10 as the Pac-12, the Ducks found themselves winning a third straight conference title in inaugural Pac-12 Championship Game, earning them a trip to the Rose Bowl. A wild shootout with the Wisconsin Badgers ended in a 45-38 win for the Ducks, their first Rose Bowl victory since 1916 under Hugo Bezdek.

Kelly would end his time at Oregon in 2012, after a 12–1 regular season ended in a Fiesta Bowl win. He would move on to coach the Philadelphia Eagles, while offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich would be tapped as his successor.

Former Gators coach Urban Meyer was hired shortly after the team's Gator Bowl loss, and lead the team to 12–0 season in 2012. Sanctions related to Tattoogate kept the team out of bowl eligibility, but the team kept strong in their 2013 campaign, going 12–2, only to lose the Orange Bowl to Clemson at season's end.

Meyer would continue the team's success in 2014, rebounding after a shocking Week 2 loss to Virginia Tech and reeling off 13 straight victories, sending Ohio State to the first-ever College Football Playoff as a No. 4 seed and upsetting No. 1 Alabama in the Sugar Bowl.

Mark Helfrich inherited a strong squad, though the school would face penalties incurred by recruiting practices under Kelly. Despite this, Helfrich led the 2013 Ducks to a strong campaign that was seemingly national championship-bound, before quarterback (and Heisman candidate) Marcus Mariota saw his season derailed by a late-season injury. The team would lose two games in three weeks to Arizona and Stanford, receiving an invite to the Alamo Bowl as compensation, where they defeated Texas 30-7.

Mariota bounced back in a big way in 2014 on his way to his eventual Heisman Trophy win, and the Ducks charged ahead to a 12–1 regular season record and the No. 2 seed in the new College Football Playoff. A Rose Bowl matchup against the defending champions, No. 3 Florida State, was a close affair until a series of FSU turnovers put the Ducks ahead decisively for a 59-20 win.