Six Ohio State Players on ESPN Top 150 All-Time List

Two-time Heisman winner Archie Griffin sure to added to ed

Ohio State fans have a default villain whenever anything bad happens to their football program, and every perceived slight only heightens the conspiracy theories that ESPN is out to get the Buckeyes.

So, it was easy for OSU fans to point toward The Worldwide Leader's supposed innate bias against all things scarlet-and-gray earlier this fall when ESPN released its list of the Top 150 coaches in college football history and Urban Meyer sat 46th.

Forty-sixth?

We won't know until Monday if the edge on that axe has been sharpened or dulled, because that's when ESPN will unveil its Top 25 college football players on a list of 150 to coincide with the sport's 150-year anniversary.

It's safe to say Ohio State fans will go full big-wigs-in-Bristol-hate-us mode if Archie Griffin, the only two-time Heisman Trophy winner in college football history, isn't No. 1, or Top 3, or at least Top 5, depending on one's level of allegiance to the Buckeyes.

But for now, there's a grudging opinion in OSU circles that the portion of the Top 150 players ESPN has disclosed includes enough Buckeyes to give the vote more credibility than Meyer's laughable landing spot awhile back.

So far, here are the Ohio State alums ESPN's panel of 150 media members, administrators, coaches and players honored with Top 150 accolades:

• No. 38 -- Eddie George, running back, 1992-95 (1995 Heisman Trophy winner).

• No. 44 -- Jack Tatum, safety, 1968-70 (two-time All-American, 7th in Heisman in 1970, 1968 national champion).

• No. 47 -- Hopalong Cassady, running back/defensive back, 1952-55 (1955 Heisman Trophy winner, 1954 national champion).

• No. 51 -- Orlando Pace, offensive tackle, 1994-96, (first true freshman ever to start on OSU offensive line, first sophomore to win and repeat as Lombardi Trophy winner, Outland Trophy winner, fourth in Heisman voting in 1996).

• No. 141 -- Jim Parker, guard, 1954-56 (OSU's first Outland Trophy winner, two-time All-American, 1954 national champion).

• No. 143 -- Chris Spielman, linebacker, 1984-87 (OSU career leader with 283 solo tackles, two-time All-American, Lombardi Trophy).

Other than Griffin, OSU's best chance to get another player into the Top 25 would be lineman Bill Willis, a College Football and Pro Football Hall of Famer who played on the Buckeyes' 1942 national championship team.

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