Ask any Buckeye fan over the age of thirty-five about the 1998 Ohio State football season and watch their face. You'll see it immediately. A mix of awe, nostalgia, and a very specific, sharp kind of pain.
They were a juggernaut. Truly.
John Cooper had spent years building a roster that felt less like a college team and more like an NFL developmental squad. By the time the 1998 season kicked off, the Buckeyes were the preseason number one. They didn't just have talent; they had a terrifying surplus of it. We're talking about a lineup featuring Joe Germaine, David Boston, Antoine Winfield, and Andy Katzenmoyer. This wasn't a team that squeaked by opponents. They dismantled them. And yet, when people talk about the greatest teams in the history of the sport, the 1998 Buckeyes are often the "what if" that haunts the conversation.
The Roster That Looked Like an All-Pro Ballot
Honestly, looking back at the depth chart is a bit ridiculous. Joe Germaine was at the helm, coming off a Rose Bowl MVP performance a couple of years prior, and he was finally the undisputed guy. He threw for 3,330 yards that season, which was a school record at the time. He wasn't just a dink-and-dunk passer; he was surgical.
Then you had David Boston.
Boston was a physical anomaly for 1998. He was 6'2", weighed nearly 215 pounds, and ran like a track star. He finished the season with 1,435 receiving yards and 13 touchdowns. When he wasn't catching passes, Dee Miller was on the other side keeping defenses honest. It was an embarrassment of riches.
But the defense? That was the real nightmare for the rest of the Big Ten.
Antoine Winfield was a tiny stick of dynamite at cornerback. He won the Thorpe Award that year, and he did it while playing against much larger receivers and absolutely erasing them. Behind him, you had the "Big Kat," Andy Katzenmoyer. While his professional career was unfortunately cut short by neck injuries, his 1998 season was the peak of his powers. He was the prototype for the modern, sideline-to-sideline middle linebacker.
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The Buckeyes started the season by going to Morgantown and beating No. 11 West Virginia 34-17. It wasn't that close. They followed that up by crushing No. 21 Missouri and No. 7 Penn State. By the time November rolled around, Ohio State was 8-0. They had spent every single week of the season ranked No. 1 in the AP Poll. They looked invincible.
The Michigan State Disaster: 28 Minutes of Chaos
If you want to understand the 1998 Ohio State football experience, you have to talk about November 7, 1998. It is the date that lives in infamy in Columbus.
Michigan State came into the Shoe as a massive underdog. They were 4-4. Nick Saban—yes, that Nick Saban—was their coach, but he hadn't yet become the "Greatest of All Time" version of himself. He was just a guy trying to get a signature win.
Ohio State led 24-9 in the third quarter. It felt over. The fans were already thinking about the national championship matchup.
Then the wheels didn't just come off; they disintegrated.
A fumbled punt. A blocked punt. A series of strange coaching decisions. Joe Germaine, who had been nearly perfect all year, started to feel the pressure. Michigan State’s kicker, Paul Edinger, kept booming field goals. The Buckeyes' offense, usually a high-powered machine, suddenly couldn't find the end zone.
The final score was 28-24.
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The silence in Ohio Stadium after that game was deafening. It wasn't just a loss. It was a heist. Because of the way the BCS worked back then (it was the very first year of the Bowl Championship Series), a single loss was often a death sentence for your title hopes. Ohio State dropped from No. 1 to No. 7 in the polls.
Why This Team Was Better Than the Champions
The eventual national champion in 1998 was Tennessee, led by Tee Martin. They were a great team, no doubt. But if you put the 1998 Buckeyes on a neutral field against that Tennessee team ten times, Ohio State probably wins seven or eight of them.
The stats back this up.
Ohio State finished the season ranked No. 1 in the nation in total defense. They were top ten in scoring offense. After the Michigan State debacle, they didn't pout. They went out and absolutely throttled No. 11 Iowa 45-14 and then beat No. 11 Michigan 31-16.
The Michigan win was particularly sweet because John Cooper had notoriously struggled against the Wolverines. Finally, he had the team to do it. David Boston had 10 catches for 217 yards and two touchdowns in that game. It was a clinic.
They ended the season in the Sugar Bowl against Texas A&M. The Buckeyes won 24-14, though it felt more dominant than the score suggested. They finished 11-1.
The tragedy of the 1998 season is that they were arguably the most complete team of the decade, yet they didn't even get to play for the trophy. They finished No. 2 in both the AP and Coaches' Polls.
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The Legacy of the '98 Buckeyes
It's easy to dismiss this team because they don't have a banner in the rafters. That's a mistake.
This team changed how Ohio State was perceived nationally. They moved away from the "three yards and a cloud of dust" reputation and became a modern, explosive program. The sheer volume of NFL talent produced by this roster is staggering.
- Antoine Winfield: 1st round pick, 3-time Pro Bowler.
- David Boston: 1st round pick, All-Pro.
- Andy Katzenmoyer: 1st round pick.
- Joe Montgomery: 2nd round pick.
- Ahmed Plummer: 1st round pick.
- Nate Clements: (Then a freshman) 1st round pick.
- Ryan Pickett: (Then a freshman) 1st round pick.
When you look at that list, you realize you weren't watching a college team. You were watching a Sunday roster playing on Saturdays.
The 1998 season served as a catalyst. It proved that Ohio State could recruit at a level equal to the Florida schools and Nebraska. Even though John Cooper would eventually be replaced by Jim Tressel a few years later, the foundation of the modern Buckeye powerhouse was poured during this era.
Lessons From a Near-Perfect Season
If you're looking for the takeaway from the 1998 Ohio State football story, it’s about the thin margin of error in college sports. One bad quarter in November can erase three months of perfection.
- Turnovers are the great equalizer. Ohio State lost to Michigan State primarily because of a -5 turnover margin. Talent doesn't matter if you give the ball away.
- The BCS was cruel. Under the modern 12-team playoff, the 1998 Buckeyes would have been the most feared team in the bracket. They likely would have cruised to a title.
- Individual greatness requires a team result for "immortality." Joe Germaine had one of the best seasons in Big Ten history, but because they didn't win it all, he's often overshadowed by guys like Craig Krenzel or J.T. Barrett who won more hardware.
To truly appreciate this team, you have to look past the Michigan State box score. You have to watch the tape of David Boston outrunning an entire secondary or Antoine Winfield tackling a running back twice his size for a loss. They were a masterpiece with one glaring smudge on the canvas.
If you want to dive deeper into why this era of football was so transformative, start by watching the 1998 Michigan game. It represents everything that team was supposed to be: fast, aggressive, and utterly dominant. From there, compare the defensive schemes of that 1998 unit to the modern "Silver Bullets"—you'll see that the roots of the current Ohio State identity started right there in the late nineties. Check out the archives of the Columbus Dispatch or the official Ohio State athletics site to see the full statistical breakdown of that defense; the numbers are even more impressive thirty years later.