Year in Review: 2019 by the numbers

Sometimes an individual player has a year that stands out. Maybe a team gets lucky and has two players who produce top-tier numbers in a single season.

Very rarely does an entire team have this kind of year; a year that places it so high in every national metric that it becomes hard to pinpoint any single weakness.

Ohio State was that team in 2019.

It was a group that didn’t even make the national championship game, yet had two Heisman finalists.

A team so full of individual talent that its backup tailback, Master Teague, ended the year No. 7 in the Big Ten in rushing yards while J.K. Dobbins set the program’s single-season record.

A team with a quarterback who posted one of the most efficient seasons in program (and NCAA) history and a defensive end who approached or broke almost every school record possible.

Let’s take a look at three story-telling numbers for Ohio State’s incomparable 2019 season.

Ohio State appeared invincible to start the regular season, which began with the famed streak of blowout victories longer than any Big Ten team has had in over 100 years.

Through its first 10 games of 2019, the Buckeyes outscored opponents 515 to 98, including seven games with at least 45 points and an equal seven games holding opponents to 10 points or fewer.

The unprecedented streak included a 71-point thrashing of Miami (OH), which was just the fifth game of this millennium in which a Big Ten team won by that many points or more, and only the second against FBS competition.

Even though each of its remaining three Big Ten games came against top-10 foes, Ohio State’s brutal dominance was barely slowed. It outgained Penn State by 190 yards in an 11-point win to enter Michigan week unbeaten.

In what is widely considered the most important game of the regular season, Ohio State put on an offensive performance that stands out as one of the greatest in the history of the bitter rivalry.

The Buckeyes’ 56-point performance was good for No. 2 all-time in the history of the matchup and its 577 yards are the most an Ohio State team has recorded against Michigan.

For the first time since 1975, Ohio State fielded a team that finished top-five in both points scored and points allowed per game, finishing +33.2 in 14 games, the highest average point differential since Florida State was +41.8 in 2013.

Next, we move to the current face of the Buckeye program.

Before Fields, only South Carolina’s Connor Shaw had thrown for over 2,000 yards in the regular season while recording just a single interception in the modern era.

Shaw threw 21 touchdowns in the 2013 regular season.

In 2019, Fields tossed a cool 37 scores in the regular season. His 2,654 yards passing outnumber Shaw by over 500 yards.

The numbers he posted as a redshirt sophomore did not have the volume of Dwayne Haskins or former Buckeye or Heisman winner Joe Burrow, but the efficiency at which Fields reached his stat line was unmatched by nearly anyone in FBS history.

It was dominance from the jump for Fields. His five total touchdowns in game one as a Buckeye were the most of any player’s Ohio State debut.

Fields posted 41 passing touchdowns in his first season in Columbus. Of the 22 quarterbacks who have thrown at least 41 touchdowns in a season this decade, Fields’ three total interceptions are the fewest of the group.

This decade, only Tua Tagovailoa and Geno Smith have started a season with more touchdown passes before their first interception.

Completing 67.2 percent of his passes, Fields posted the second-highest completion rate for a starting Ohio State quarterback since 2000, trailing only Haskins’ unbelievable 2018 season.

On a team with one of the single-greatest workhorse running backs in Ohio State history, it’s understandable why Fields didn’t tally the sheer numbers of some of college football’s greatest under center. But look beyond the counting numbers, and his 2019 season was one of the most impressive of all time.

Chase Young was suspended for two games in 2019. Don’t overlook that.

He only played in 12 of Ohio State’s 14 games, and as teams keyed in on him over the Buckeyes’ final contests, Young’s production dropped significantly.

Young faced double and triple-teams against Wisconsin and Clemson and recorded zero sacks, tackles for loss, or forced fumbles in the final three games of the season.

Yet he still had one of the most overwhelmingly dominant seasons of any FBS defensive end in recent memory.

By the time he left school and became the No. 2 pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, Young had put himself at or near the top of every applicable leaderboard for the Ohio State defensive line. He and Buckeye great Mike Vrabel hold nearly every one of those records.

On the single-game level, Young tied the for first in program history in terms of sacks in a game and tackles for loss in a game, with four and five, respectively.

Expanding the scope to single-season, and his 2019 performance obliterated the program record for sacks in a season with 16.5, and with that, the most sack yards in a season.

Young led Division 1 in sacks in 2019 and ended up No. 2 in program history for his career.

If he had matched Vrabel’s full college career, Young would almost certainly own the top spot in every category. The fact that he holds the portion he does in just 34 games at Ohio State is an accomplishment in itself.

To end his Ohio State career with a top-four finish in Heisman voting- just the ninth time a defensive player has done so since 1970- was the perfect going away party for Young.

So many more numbers could have been added on to display this team’s dominance. To not wind up in championship contention with a team like this is an absolute shame.

Nonetheless, last season was one of the more astonishing seasons for a program with an already-remarkable history.