5 facts that show just how gruesome Ohio State’s offense was against Michigan State

Though no member of the Ohio State program is going to feel good about the Buckeyes’ undefeated season ending against Michigan State, everyone responsible for Ohio State’s offense should probably feel the worst. The Buckeyes gained just 132 yards in their loss to the Spartans, and ran only 45 plays, both the lowest totals of the Urban Meyer era.

But how bad are those numbers, really?

Ohio State’s previous smallest tally of total offense under Meyer was 236, racked up against Wisconsin in 2012 — and that one went to overtime, and produced a win. The Buckeyes still covered more than a full field less ground in Saturday’s debacle.

The previous worst outing by a Meyer team was a 206-yard total posted by Florida at LSU in a 21-17 loss in 2005. That produced what was then the second-worst record of Meyer’s head coaching career -- 4-2.

And because of that, and Meyer’s mix of pride and frustration at his Gators’ relatively slow progress, the waterworks were in full effect after that game.

The Buckeyes posted 2.93 yards per play on Saturday. In 2014, at Penn State, they put up 3.86 yards per play in another overtime game, and threw for just 74 yards, their previous low under Meyer.

That’s almost a full yard per play, a substantial difference over the course of even a 45-play game. That Penn State game -- also a win -- was one of the closest games in the eventual national champions’ post-Virginia Tech run of dominance, one of three games the Buckeyes won by seven points.

And, okay, that’s Baylor, No. 1 nationally in total offense, and the Bears got off to a great start against Oklahoma State, with a dizzying 290 yards of total offense in the period. They run a ton of plays, too, which helps them pile up the yards.

But Baylor came into Saturday averaging about 638 yards per game in 2015. That translates to an average of nearly 160 yards per quarter this year, which made a period to outstrip Ohio State’s entire game pretty predictable.

UCF is terrible. It is dead last in FBS in rushing yards, yards per play, and total offense, and the beer’s still flowing freely at the bar that promised it gratis to patrons during Knights games. UCF has gained at least 134 yards of total offense in every game in 2015.

Charlotte is horrible. The 49ers are in their first year at the FBS level, haven’t won since September, and were ranked No. 193, worst of all FBS teams, in Jeff Sagarin’s ratings of Division I schools entering Saturday. (There are only 128 FBS schools.) The 49ers have gained at least 200 yards of total offense in every game in 2015.

Boston College is awful, with the nation’s worst passing offense belonging to a non-option team. The Eagles haven’t scored 20 points since a 76-0 obliteration of FCS Howard in September. And they have gained fewer than Ohio State’s 132 yards just once in 2015, in a pitiful 76-yard effort at Louisville.

In fact, the only other teams in the nation’s bottom 10 in total offense with a tally worse than what Ohio State mustered Saturday are Tulane, which had 110 at stingy Temple, Louisiana-Monroe, which had 92 at Alabama, and Fresno State, which put up just 89 at San Diego State.

Ohio State basically had as bad a day in one of the season’s biggest games as any of the nation’s most offensively inept teams had on their worst days. In many cases, Ohio State’s worst was worse than those cellar-dwellers’ worst.

And unlike all of those teams, the Buckeyes did it at home. On Senior Day.