Ohio State, Oregon legends know legacy on the line in title game

Former greats Archie Griffin, Kirk Herbsteit and Joey Harrington know what's on the line in the national championship game. For Ohio State, it's a chance to return to the sport's summit. For Oregon, a national title would serve as the final missing piece to its recent ascent to dominance.

Kirk Herbstreit first met Ohio State coach Urban Meyer as a junior at Centerville High in Centerville, Ohio. The coach was a graduate assistant with the Buckeyes, and he and Herbstreit kept in touch as Meyer moved up the coaching ladder. Two decades later, Meyer has Ohio State on the verge of its first national championship since 2002.

“I’ve know him, and I’ve known his heart, privately,” Herbstreit said of Meyer this week. “Even when Jim Tressel was doing amazing things at Ohio State, in the back of my mind I thought, it’ll be interesting when coach Tressel retires and if Urban Meyer gets his chance to kind of live out his dream and become the head coach at Ohio State. I thought those things privately and never really talked about them. Then obviously everything happened that happened.”

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Herbstreit is not just an ESPN analyst. He’s a former Ohio State quarterback watching his alma mater vie for another national title. The eyes of several past Ohio State and Oregon stars will fall on Arlington on Monday night when the two teams clash. For one program, it’s a chance to return to the sport’s summit. For the other, a championship would serve as the final missing piece to its recent ascent to dominance.

Ohio State is seeking its eighth national championship, but a win over Oregon would mark just the program’s second title since 1970. The Buckeyes have put together great teams in the interim, including Meyer’s first team in 2012. That squad capped a 12-0 regular season, but it was barred from postseason play due to lingering NCAA sanctions from the Tressel era. Meyer has a 37-3 record since his arrival in Columbus yet has not played for a national title with Ohio State before this season.

He entered the year with the odds stacked against him thanks to a preseason injury to starting quarterback and Heisman hopeful Braxton Miller. Backup J.T. Barrett stepped in for Miller and became a Heisman contender himself, but a fractured ankle forced Ohio State to start Cardale Jones in the Big Ten title game. Meanwhile, tragedy struck Ohio State off the field when walk-on defensive lineman Kosta Karageorge committed suicide in November.

The number of obstacles in Ohio State’s path is why Archie Griffin, college football’s only two-time Heisman Trophy winner and a former Ohio State running back, thinks the 2014 Buckeyes might be the best team of the Meyer era.

“When you consider the fact that they’re on the third quarterback, dealing with the death of a player, all the adversity that they’ve had, then this would have to be considered one of the best,” said Griffin. “But you never know what that team that went undefeated would’ve done. You like to believe it would’ve won. You’d like to believe it would’ve gotten to a national championship game, and you like to believe it would’ve done well. But it didn’t happen.”

A win by the Buckeyes would mark Meyer’s third national title as a coach while also lifting the program back into the driver’s seat in the Big Ten. In 2013, Michigan State dropped then-undefeated Ohio State in the Big Ten title game before winning the Rose Bowl. If not for NCAA sanctions and that one loss, the Buckeyes might be contending for their third straight title this year.

Herbstreit said Ohio State’s win over Alabama in the Sugar Bowl was the program’s biggest victory since beating Miami for the national championship in 2002. But the Buckeyes’ former quarterback isn’t shocked that his alma mater has returned to the top of college football.

“I’m not surprised at all to see the success he’s enjoying,” Herbstreit said of Meyer. “The fact he’s made it to a national championship this quickly from where they were, the job that he’s done this year, I would argue, is as good a job of coaching as he’s ever done as a head coach.”

Added Griffin: “This team is pretty doggone special.”

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Ohio State's Road to the National Championship

Ohio State 34, Navy 17 (Aug. 30)

Al Tielemans/SI

The J.T. Barrett era began with neither a bang nor a whimper, but instead a calm, conservative victory. The redshirt freshman completed 12-of-15 passes for 226 yards with two touchdowns and a blunder of an interception.

Virginia Tech 35, Ohio State 21 (Sept. 6)

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Disaster struck early for the Buckeyes as Virginia Tech -- which went on to barely get to bowl eligibility -- took down Ohio State in Columbus, breaking through a porous Buckeyes offensive line for seven sack while limiting Barrett to 9-of-29 passing with three interceptions.

Ohio State 66, Kent State 0 (Sept. 13)

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Ohio State took out its frustration from the loss to the Hokies on a hapless Kent State squad, as Barrett tied a school record with six touchdown passes -- five in the first half.

Ohio State 50, Cincinnati 28 (Sept. 27)

Al Tielemans/SI

Cincinnati quarterback Gunner Kiel kept the Bearcats in it with 352 yards passing and four touchdowns, but the Buckeyes exploded for 710 yards of offense behind Barrett and running back Ezekiel Elliott.

Ohio State 52, Maryland 24 (Oct. 4)

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The Buckeyes gave Maryland a cold welcome to the Big Ten in the Terrapins' first home conference game. Barrett continued to show his rapid improvement, passing for 267 yards with five total touchdowns, and Ohio State's defense forced four interceptions.

Ohio State 56, Rutgers 17 (Oct. 18)

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The Buckeyes scored 50 or more points for the fourth consecutive game, setting a school record as they trounced the Scarlet Knights. Barrett racked up five total touchdowns with 261 yards passing and 107 yards on the ground.

Ohio State 31, Penn State 24 2OT (Oct. 25)

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With Barrett struggling through a sprained MCL, the Buckeyes blew a 17-0 lead but escaped Happy Valley with a double-overtime victory. Joey Bosa picked up 2 1/2 sacks, the last one ending the game by forcing a turnover-on-downs.

Ohio State 55, Illinois 14 (Nov. 1)

Jay LaPrete/AP

After the scare against the Nittany Lions, the Buckeyes took no chances against the Fighting Illini, building a 48-0 advantage en route to the lopsided win.

Ohio State 49, Michigan State 37 (Nov. 8)

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In a College Football Playoff elimination game, Ohio State proved its superiority with a dominant victory in East Lansing. Barrett passed for 300 yards, rushed 86 and scored five touchdowns while Elliott tallied 154 yards on the ground with two scores. The Buckeyes never trailed in the second half.

Ohio State 31, Minnesota 24 (Nov. 15)

Ann Heisenfelt/AP

The Buckeyes picked up their second road victory over a ranked team in as many weeks, surviving heavy snow and a 145-yard, three touchdown effort from Golden Gophers running back David Cobb. Despite Barrett setting the Ohio State record for total touchdowns in a season, the Buckeyes needed a late onside kick recovery to seal the win.

Ohio State 42, Indiana 27 (Nov. 22)

Jay LaPrete/AP

Tevin Coleman (228 yards rushing and three touchdowns) and the Hoosiers gave the Buckeyes all they could handle and might have pulled the stunning upset if not for Jalin Marshall. Ohio State's redshirt freshman score four straight second-half touchdowns, including a 54-yard punt return late in the third quarter that gave the Buckeyes the lead for good.

Ohio State 42, Michigan 28 (Nov. 29)

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The joy of a closer-than-expected win over their biggest rival was muted by the Buckeyes' sorrow over J.T. Barrett's injury, a fractured ankle that ended his season. After the quarterback went down on the first play of the fourth quarter, Ohio State scored twice to pull away for the victory.

Ohio State 59, Wisconsin 0 (Dec. 6)

Jeff Haynes/SI

No Braxton Miller and no J.T. Barrett? No problem for the Buckeyes. Third-stringer Cardale Jones engineered an annihilation of the Badgers as Ohio State dominate every facet of the game and leapfrogged TCU while holding off Baylor to earn the No. 4 seed in the playoff.

Ohio State 42, Alabama 35 (Jan. 1)

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Jones delivered again for the Buckeyes, picking up 286 yards of offense as the Ohio State stunned Alabama to win Sugar Bowl and advance to the national title game. Elliott's fourth-quarter, 85-yard touchdown run and Tyvis Powell's interception on Blake Sims' Hail Mary helped seal the upset.

Monday’s championship game is a bit different from the perspective of former Oregon players. The Ducks have been one of college football’s most dominant programs over the last few years, going 70-10 in six seasons under Chip Kelly and Mark Helfrich. But entering 2014, Oregon had yet to win a championship or claim a Heisman Trophy.

Quarterback Marcus Mariota knocked the latter off of the Ducks’ to-do list last month. That’s something past stars like Joey Harrington, Dennis Dixon and LaMichael James couldn’t bring to Eugene. Now Oregon’s ascension to the sport’s peak is almost complete under Mariota. For Harrington, the Ducks’ season shows just how far the program has come since his playing days.

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“We were all in different situations: Myself, Dennis, LaMichael and Marcus,” said Harrington. “But I think that Marcus is -- I don’t want to call it the culmination of the program, but when I was in the mix we obviously had to put up a 10-story billboard in New York just to get everybody’s attention. And it worked in the fact that I ended up in New York to end the season.

“I think through the continuation of the development of the program in the last decade and all the things that come with it -- building a national brand, the uniforms, et cetera -- people are watching [Oregon] now,” Harrington said.

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Harrington knows what it’s like to lead an Oregon program still trying to make its mark on college football. He helped lead the Ducks to their first 10-win season in 2000, and he staged a Heisman campaign the very next year with the help of his Manhattan billboard (he finished fourth in voting). Now Oregon is on the cusp of finally winning its first championship, a journey sparked by Harrington and others several seasons ago. Mariota will look to finish it Monday against Ohio State.

“That was one of the first things Chip Kelly told me when we were talking about who was going to replace Darron Thomas [in 2011],” Harrington said. “He said, ‘This freshman kid we’ve got, Marcus Mariota’ -- who was redshirting at the time – ‘he just gets it. He just gets football.’”

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