A word of warning : this is about a rant about a pet peeve, and nothing more. It's the offseason, and I'm bored. Now, you may like quoting this statistic, and while I may think it's hokey, I don't hate you for it. The ensuing rant isn't exactly serious business. Just don't expect this statistic to hold up for very long when put under any serious scrutiny.

Whenever Ohio State's struggles in "big games" are brought up in interweb slapfights, as Buckeye fans we sometimes like to run to this comfy little blanket of a cherry-picked statistic:

The last [Ohio State] loss to a non-BCS bound team was against Purdue on November 13, 2004. That's a run of 53 straight games, and over four years ago, while USC's streak is at ten, as is Florida's. Oklahoma's streak is at 17, Alabama's is at 15, Utah's is at 14, Texas's is at four, and LSU's at one

That's Pete Fiutak from CFN touting the party line in their aggressively mediocre Ohio State preview (Boom Herron's a scatback? Wha-wa-wee-wa?). That record is a nice, pretty statistic with bright flashy colors that may help soothe the pain of three straight BCS bowl losses, but what does it really mean? Well, it means that we don't get upset very often, right? Cool, I guess. Well, that's not entirely true. Illinois was unranked when it shocked number one Ohio State on senior day, so that isn't the best of descriptions. So what does it really say? E-pinions after the jump.

For starters, let's look at the losses. In 2005, Ohio State lost to one great team and one that was probably merely very good - Vince Young's title-winning Texas squad and a fired up Penn State team in the first (and best) Happy Valley whiteout. The Longhorns would end up being the most dominant team outside of USC in college football that year; and they'd even end up topping the Trojans in an epic Rose Bowl clash, after the Human Gazelle Vince Young said, "fuck it" and just took his ball and ran like his mother was coming after him with a belt. Penn State would finish the season with one loss - that loss being to a 7-5 Michigan team - before playing the least exciting triple overtime game ever against a four-loss Florida State squad. While Penn State was very good that year and a touchdown better than Ohio State, they were by no means a powerhouse. I don't say this to be incendiary, but outside of the win over Ohio State, they didn't do a whole lot to put themselves into the discussion. Not a "bad team to lose to" in any sense of the word, but (probably) not a championship-caliber one either. In 2006, Ohio State lost to one BCS-bound team - Florida, and did so by four touchdowns. But they also beat Michigan, who would go on to lose the Rose Bowl by merely two touchdowns. In 2007, Ohio State against played two BCS-bound teams, but you wouldn't know it looking at 2007 Illinois:

Yes, that awkward white area on this stassen chart is hideous, but so is your mother

That Illinois team had lost to Mike Hart-less Michigan and a .500 Iowa team, and Juice Williams had been doing the do-si-do with fellow mediocre scrambler Eddie McGee for playing time, as he had played particularly poorly in the key stretches of almost all their games outside of Ohio State. There was more to the all that "certain blowout" against USC talk than Big Ten antipathy; Illinois was simply a slightly-above average team that went on a run late in the season in a bad, bad conference, and got a kinda-deserving bad rap for it. They were good, but they were also the most fish-out-of-water team in the history of the BCS, outside of the 2007 Hawaii Warriors.

Ohio State's next loss was, of course, to LSU, which is entirely forgiveable because LSU was a gorilla with a chainsaw penis.

(Brilliance courtesy of The House Rock Built, which - eek! - may make you enjoy reading about Notre Dame)

No hard science and analysis needs to be done here; LSU was without question the most talented team in the country that year and of all these losses, this is the the most understandable outside of Texas '05. It's actually admirable we kept it within two touchdowns.

In 2008, Ohio State suffered three losses, as you all know, and yet again, all of them were miraculously to BCS-bound teams. Of course, once again we actually lost to one of those teams in the BCS, and the other two teams ended up playing each other. USC ended up mauling Penn State, to basically no one's surprise outside of State College.

So what do we have here? Well, we have three national champions, and all those losses are therefore relatively respectable. While I still have a hard time believing a Florida team that beat Vanderbilt by six points beat Ohio State by 21 more than that, it happened, and Florida ended up being a respected champion. But outside of that, we have a loss to USC - and everyone who's anyone OOC has lost to USC lately, so is there really shame in that? - and we have two losses to Penn State and one to Illinois, the latter of which still leaves a rather bitter taste in my mouth.

Merely looking at these numbers, there isn't much to complain about. We've lost to - with the exception of Illinois and perhaps 2005 Penn State - teams that would have probably beaten 115 other FBS squads. Said record is the envy of approximately 110 other FBS teams. But what exactly should our mantra be, then? Ohio State: Where we only to lose to good teams?

The Dispatch may have already beat me to it:

And then, there's a different way to spin statistics that's not nearly as flattering to OSU. The Buckeyes have not beaten a team ranked in the top 10 since the 2006 Michigan game -- a streak of 27 straight games.

Since then, OSU is 0-5 against top 10 teams (Florida and LSU in the title games, then USC, Penn State and Texas last season.)

In his OSU tenure, Tressel got off to an 8-2 start against top 10 teams, with notable wins over Washington State and Miami in the 2002 season, and also over No. 9 Iowa and No. 8 Kansas State in the 2003 season, Michigan in 2004, Notre Dame in January 2006, and Texas and Michigan in 2006.

With five straight losses, though, Tressel now is 8-7 against the top 10. Still a decent record, but obviously in need of a signature win to stop the slide.

If Ohio State fans want to get their team the respect it supposedly isn't getting in the mainstream press, the answer probably isn't touting this rinky-dink statistic that puts a happy rainbows-and-unicorns-and-squirrels-and-butterfly-farts spin on a trend that is, at the very least, a bit concerning. This may be nitpicking, but if you're whining about our "lack of respect" and all the "hate" from Mark May, Colin Cowherd et al., I suggest forgetting whatever nifty spin you can put on the losing streak because it's sorta hokey and embarrassing and most can see through it. Quite frankly, it reeks of Domerism, dudes. We're simply an excellent program struggling against other excellent programs. There's no shame in losing to the teams we lost to, but it doesn't quite look like you think so when you invent statistics and records of which we should be proud (especially when the actual overall record itself is something to be proud of without clever re-wording and re-framing of the discussion), and then proceed to shove these new statistics and records in the face of anyone who criticizes our bowl record of late. Drop it, guys. Just enjoy the ride, and stop worrying about our "national reputation" and "perception" because there isn't jack you can do to change it, and you probably aren't helping things by trotting out this doublespeak in defense of your team. It's not a "bad thing" that we lost to these teams - it's football, shit happens - but it's also exceedingly lame to cover up a worrying trend with a sugary, easy-to-consume, and largely throwaway statistic.  There, I said it.