Football Photos

The 100 Greatest Football Photos In The-Ozone’s History

TheOzone 100 greatest football photos Ohio State Buckeyes

The-Ozone’s Jim Davidson started shooting Ohio State football games from the sidelines in the fall of 2002. If you’re a Buckeye fan, that’s a fairly significant time for another reason: the national championship the Bucks won a few months later.

Since then, our photographers have shot and posted about 40,000 photos of Ohio State football games and practices.

The years depicted in those galleries span one of the greatest runs in the history of the sport: two national championships, 11 conference titles, 10 wins in BCS/New Year’s Six bowl games, and a 16-2 record against Michigan.

If you want to check out the absolutely cream of the crop – the highlights of the highlights of two decades filled with big plays and big wins – you’re in the right place.

Look, we get it: you don’t have time to go through all 40,000 or so shots to bask in the glow of glorious victories of the past. So we’ve got some great news: we did the hard work for you.

We identified more than 800 of the greatest photos shot by photographers from The-Ozone since 2002, and we’re going to post them over the span of the next couple weeks.

We’ll start with the very best of the best: the 100 greatest photos ever shot by our photographers. We’re not going to rank them, exactly. The gallery below is broken up into four pages, and ordered chronologically by year.

At the beginning, you’ll find Holy Buckeye, Chris Gamble’s 2002 pick-six against Penn State, Will Allen’s game-clinching interception against Michigan that year, and the national title win over Miami.

Then Dustin Fox’s game-saving field goal block against Purdue in 2003, Mike Nugent’s game-winning field goal against Marshall in 2004, more big wins in The Game than you can keep track of, and the blocked field goal that set off John L. Smith’s legendary halftime rant in 2005.  And that’s just the top half of the first page.

These are unique shots of some of the most iconic moments in Ohio State football history.

You’ll also find some less familiar plays that just happened to turn into once-in-a-lifetime photos. Terry McLaurin might not have caught the pass at Michigan State in 2016 that you’ll find on page 3, but it kind of doesn’t matter.

Sometimes it rains, sometimes the temperature is in the teens and Kerry Coombs is in a short-sleeved shirt, and sometimes you catch a shot right at the moment of impact.

We hope you enjoy this look at the 100 greatest shots in The-Ozone’s history. We’ll have additional posts looking at other incredible photos and moments from 2002 to 2019 in the coming days.

(Note from the photographer: For optimal viewing, make your window full screen (F11 on PC), click on the first image and click the play button on the lower tool box, minimize that menu with the center down arrow. Enjoy! – Jim Davidson)

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5 Responses

  1. Gotta love A.J. Hawk planting his future brother-in-law! Thanks for the memories, Jim, and we’re grateful you won your fight during that time as well.

  2. My favorite pictures are the ones where an ohio state RB is running down the field and the whole Michigan defense is trying to catch up.

  3. It’s been years. Bring back the Kirk Barton cigar pic!

    1. I’d love too. Maybe I’ll quietly slip it back in…

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