Clemson Games Have Significance in Ohio State History

Three previous meetings brought memorable consequences for Buckeyes

Ohio State and Clemson share a lot of history for two teams without much shared history.

Their Saturday night kickoff in the Fiesta Bowl at the College Football Playoff will be only the fourth game between the schools even though each has been playing the sport for more than a century.

But each of the three previous meetings has made an indelible mark in Ohio State annals, even though none were pleasant at the time.

Clemson has never lost to the Buckeyes and is one of only two schools that's played OSU three times or more without a defeat.

The other is Florida State, which hasn't played Ohio State since a dominant 31-14 win in the 1998 Sugar Bowl, which followed two wins at Ohio Stadium in the 1980s.

Clemson has beaten OSU twice since then, in the 2014 Orange Bowl and in the 2016 Fiesta Bowl, which served as a College Football semifinal.

Those two games, although in major bowls, will never eclipse the significance of the first Clemson-Ohio State game in the 1978 Gator Bowl. 

Legendary OSU coach Woody Hayes forced his firing the morning following that 17-15 loss by punching Clemson linebacker Charlie Bauman after he intercepted Art Schlichter's pass and ran out of bounds near Hayes on the Ohio State sideline with less than a minute to play.

Bauman ironically wound up living and working in Ohio and attending Ohio State games.

Other than Hayes, OSU's most legendary coach is Urban Meyer, who lost only nine times in seven seasons with the Buckeyes, with both his losses to Clemson having a transformative impact on his program.

The 40-35, Orange Bowl defeat resulted from Clemson's Sammy Watkins catching 16 passes for 227 yards against the Buckeyes' soft zone secondary coverage.

That came at the end of a season in which OSU allowed 34 points to California, 30 against Northwestern, 24 to Iowa, 35 to Illinois, 41 to Michigan and 34 in Meyer's first loss in 23 games at OSU in the Big Ten title game against MSU.

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That defeat cost Ohio State a berth in the national championship game against Notre Dame, which got eviscerated by Alabama in the aftermath of the Mant'i Teo, fake-girlfriend controversy.

Meyer saw Watkins take repeated short swing passes for long gains and vowed that wouldn't happen again, resulting in the hiring of Chris Ash to run the defense and install press-man coverage in the secondary.

That worked for a national championship the following season and became a staple of OSU's defense throughout the Meyer era.

Similarly, Ohio State's 31-0 loss to Clemson in the 2016 Fiesta Bowl prompted Meyer to make a significant offensive change.

Quarterback J.T. Barrett struggled to throw throughout the latter half of that season and wound up with just 127 passing yards against the Tigers.

Meyer gave the boot to co-coordinators Tim Beck and Ed Warinner and hired Ryan Day to revamp the passing game and coach Barrett the following season.

Since then, no program has thrown for more touchdowns than Ohio State and Day's role in that was so significant it resulted in him getting Meyer's job upon his retirement.

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