Saw a lot of posts merged in over the past couple years about the 2008 road trip to the Coliseum, which I thought odd. OSU were road underdogs to the #1 ranked team and without Beanie Wells due to his foot injury. I was not personally feeling too optimistic going into that one given the turds Tressel's teams had produced against Top-5 opponents over the previous five seasons.
Frankly, the 2009 USC game was far, far worse because Pryor, Boom, and 'Block-O' were all entering their second year in the program, -- Boeckman had graduated and there would be no QB controversy, -- meanwhile Matt Barkley was a true frosh starting only his second game ever on the road in the Horseshoe. Yet he (and Joe McKnight) carved OSU up on that final fourth quarter drive under the lights just like Juice Williams and Radio had done in the Shoe in prior seasons. What made that one really sting was the national media tearing Tressel a new asshole over the comedy that OSU's offense had become. National writers weren't just writing about Pryor's shortcomings reading defenses and not seeing wide-open receivers in the secondary, rather they were writing hit-pieces on Tressel's offensive concepts in their entirety, and giving YouTube proof to the things Herbstreit had articulated five years earlier that rankled Buckeye fans so much.
We had 05 Texas & Penn St, 06 Florida, 07 Illinois & LSU, and 08 USC, Penn St, and Texas, as evidence where the team had scored 22, 10, 14, 21, 24, 3, 6, and 21. Add in 2009 with 15 & 18 point efforts against USC & Purdue, and of course the season nadir 18 against Wisconsin in 2010, it was evident that while Tresselball had delivered one national title, it was increasingly improbable that it could ever clinch a second; particularly after Joe Daniels' lengthy illness and passing, and JT replacing his role on staff with himself and a videographer. Due to that, Ohio State effectively had no QB Coach from 2007 - 2011. The product on the field routinely demonstrated that.
That 2009 squad had either a safety or a TD handed to them on a silver platter when USC failed to return or even pick up a live ball on the kickoff, and the Buckeyes didn't know what to do. Hell, I could throw in the opening kick from the 2005 Texas game as well. For a coach who built a reputation on playing smart, conservative football, JT's teams quite honestly committed a lot of dumb mistakes, dumb penalties, and dumb turnovers over his decade which could be directly attributed to a handful of those one-possession losses against really good teams.
Tressel and Urban will forever get a pass on their shortcomings for winning titles and dominating Michigan, but the egregious mismanagement of talent from 2003-2018 under their tenures should be every bit as damning as what occurred under John Cooper's.
As per the impetus of this thread, my original answer 18 years ago was 1998 Sparty, and today my answer remains 1998 Sparty. But 2009 USC and 2017 Oklahoma are both worthy candidates because, IMHO, they provided evidence that the guy with the headset and fat contract running OSU football was playing an antiquated form of the game and that it was time for OSU to move on. What makes one single game truly agonizing? When you realize despite the .800 winning percentages and national championships, it might be time to fire the coach.
