Taking a look at the last time Ohio State played a five-game season

Ohio State made history on Tuesday.

Actually, I suppose that credit goes to Michigan. When the Wolverines canceled The Game for the first time in over a century, it meant Ohio State would only be playing five regular season games in 2020.

The last time the Buckeyes participated in a regular season of five games or fewer was in 1891-- the second official season of Ohio State football.

Those infamous two seasons were far from pretty, but they were the driving forces that (eventually) landed Columbus on the map as one of the nation's premier college football locations.

Ohio State's opponents may have appeared wildly different than the Big Ten of today, but they certainly gave the program some trouble in its infancy period.

Let's take a look at the two seasons most comparable to this year in terms of games played: 1890 and 1891 Ohio State football.

Ohio State's first ever year on the gridiron was a bit of a mess, for multiple reasons.

This was a team with no coach, no plan for a season, and no real chance at success.

In today's world (unless you're Coastal Carolina), games are scheduled years in advance. The big scheduling news for Ohio State this year was an announced series between the Buckeyes and Alabama scheduled for 2027 and 2028.

The scheduling process of 130 years ago was a bit different.

Since there was extremely limited competition and traveling capabilities for a first-year program like Ohio State, the Buckeyes had severe trouble even deciding on a season for football to be played, eventually landing on spring as the setting for all-time game number one.

With no head coach and a team without any real make-up, the Buckeyes traveled 30 minutes north to Delaware, OH to play the season-opener, a 20-14 win over Ohio Wesleyan that set the winning standard for years to come.

Just kidding.

Ohio State proceeded to lose all four of its remaining games, including an exhibition against the Dayton Athletic Club, a team that roamed the Midwest, taking on professional and collegiate opponents alike.

Imagine the sanctions the NCAA would hammer down on the Dayton Athletic Club today.

Either way, the entirety of 1890 was essentially split up into two seasons: spring (one game) and fall (four games). This was done for two reasons. One was Ohio State finding a coach for the fall.

The first head coach in program history would become Alexander S. Lilley, the esteemed former Princeton coach who was just 23 when he took over the job.

Reason number two for a separate fall season was slightly more drastic: a lot of Ohio State players graduated in the spring and left the program. Sorry, Justin Hilliard-- redshirts and eligibility rules had not yet been established.

So with a completely new team, a new head coach, and a semi-legitimate schedule, the Buckeyes set out for part two of season one.

It wasn't a successful beginning. Early accounts say that Ohio State only scored 10 points over its remaining four games. It was outscored by 136 points over those games.

Keep in mind-- in this period, standard college football scoring was four points for a touchdown, five for a field goal, and two for a PAT. Ohio State was allowing boatloads of scoring chances to its opponents, time after time.

A respectable(?) 18-10 loss to Kenyon closed out an ugly start to the program's history.

According to early databases, Ohio State's (collegiate) opponents finished 1890 with a combined 12-7 record.

As most do, Ohio State's first season together held a very sharp learning curve.

As Lilley settled in and tried to develop a culture similar to the one Ryan Day has implemented, Ohio State slowly found its groove as a program.

The Buckeyes settled on fall as the preferred season for football, playing every game between Oct. 17 and Dec. 5, 1891.

Lilley and staff also decided that games against opponents which clearly weren't colleges would not take place any longer-- all five of Ohio State's opponents in 1891 still play college football today, as Buchtel College eventually morphed into the University of Akron.

Aptly-named Recreation Park was the site for Ohio State's first home games, and the school officially adopted it as a home field in 1891.

The park was also home to the Columbus Solons of the American Baseball Association, and currently stands as a Giant Eagle in the German Village neighborhood of Columbus-- a far cry from Ohio Stadium.

The program was coming into form.

Still, success was mighty hard to come by in the earliest days of season number two (note the opponents' combined 17-8 record in 1891). The team's acting captain was supposed to be Richard T. Ellis entering the season, but Ellis broke his leg against Western Reserve and bailed on his captaining duties.

He was replaced by Frank Haas against Kenyon, but Haas' period on top only lasted one game before multi-sport star George Pearce stepped in against Denison. Leadership was clearly all over the place.

Ohio State locked down on defense in late November, however, taking down a very good Denison team 8-4 and wrapping up with an electrifying win 4-0 win over Buchtel to end the five-game slate.

As it turned out, these earliest seasons were just the building blocks for Lilley, who coached three more seasons for Ohio State and compiled a 15-13 record, scheduling more games and picking up a number of big wins.

There you have it-- Ohio State's earliest seasons of football set it up for what was to come in 2020.

We're in one of the strangest seasons of Buckeye football since the 19th century, when games only took place in Ohio, could be scheduled against seemingly any opponent, and occasionally ended with scores like 4-0.

Be thankful Ohio State found its way to the Big Ten.