Who was the best Buckeye team?

I posted the following in response to someone that pointed out that John Cooper lost to both Michigan and the Bowl game 7 times in 13 years.

Excluding Michigan and bowl games, Coop's 1993-98 teams were an amazing 57-5-1. 5-7 vs Michigan/Bowl.

Those teams were among the most talented in Ohio State history and it is too bad they faltered down the stretch. Tresselball is no doubt a conservative gameplan but Cooper combined conservative play with panic and it showed on the field.

The worst for me was the 1996 Michigan game. I was sure they were going to win as they dominated play in the first half. Then a few breaks go Michigan's way and the team just seemed to accept they weren't going to win. At the end it was the quietest I've ever heard the stadium.

Here's the 13 games we didn't win.

11/6/1993 @ Wisconsin (10-1-1) 14-14
11/20/1993 @ Michigan (8-4) 0-28
9/10/1994 @ Washington (7-4)16-25
10/8/1994 vs. Illinois (7-5) 10-24
10/29/1994 @ Penn State (12-0)14-63
1/2/1995 vs. Alabama (12-1) 17-24
11/25/1995 @ Michigan (9-4) 23-31
1/1/1996 vs. Tennessee (11-1) 14-20
11/23/1996 vs. Michigan (8-4) 9-13
10/11/1997 @ Penn State (9-3) 27-31
11/22/1997 @ Michigan (12-0) 14-20
1/1/1998 vs. Florida State (11-1) 14-31
11/7/1998 vs. Michigan State (6-6) 24-28

To that someone responded with:

1969 osu team was THE most talented in osu history - and lost by 2 TDs to um 

I'm really not sure what he was trying to say and thought about remarking with a sarcastic -- Your point? But the more I thought about it it got me to thinking. Is the 1969 team the most talent in OSU history?

So I got out my trusty Excel program and downloaded a bit of information to make the following response.

Not sure you can definitively say the 1968 team was the most talented ever

There's really no good way to judge college talent but a good guide would be how the NFL rated by using the draft.  Keeping in mind that the NFL had 17 rounds back then, the 1968-1970 Buckeyes had 20 players drafted in the NFL (6.7 per year) with 8 (2.7) going in the first 100 picks.

The 1993-1998 Buckeyes had 38 players drafted (6.3 per year) with 22 (3.7) going in the first 100 picks.

The 2002-2006 Buckeyes had 39 players drafted (7.8 per year) with 23 (4.6) going in the first 100 picks.

These were all great Buckeye teams. All had great wins intermixed with a few heartbreaking defeats though I think it is safe to say that Cooper's teams underperformed the most.

I'm not sure if this proves anything but it was something I've been meaning to do for a while. I have all the NFL draft classes in Excel from 1990-2010 and now have added the 1968-1972 classes. Someday I'd like to fill in the gap.

On a totally unrelated note, USC had 27 players drafted from 1968-1970 while Grambling had 25 and Alabama had 3. It would have been interesting to see Grambling play back then. If a BCS system existed at that time they might have gotten an invite.