CLEVELAND, Ohio - Urban Meyer’s seven-year run at Ohio State is difficult to top with a national championship, two trips to the playoffs and only nine losses. But Buckeye fans might be surprised to learn that had there been a playoff earlier, Ohio State likely would have been invited four times under Jim Tressel and three times under John Cooper.

There, of course, was no four-team playoff until 2014, the season the Buckeyes won the national championship under Meyer.

But to get an idea of how Ohio State -- and every other team in the country -- would have done in making playoff appearances had the format existed earlier, cleveland.com researched rankings over the last 50 seasons. Based on the top four teams in the last rankings before the bowl games each season (or fifth team in the case of a higher-ranked school being on probation), Ohio State would have made the playoffs 16 times over 50 years.

That’s the third most of any school in the country. Alabama would have had 20 playoff appearances and Oklahoma 19.

Closest behind Ohio State’s 16 are Florida State with 13, Miami and Nebraska with 12 each, Michigan with 11, USC with eight, and Texas with seven. Forty-one schools would have made the playoffs over the last half-century, including regular-season unbeaten Cincinnati in 2009.

Shown in the chart at the bottom of this story are the would-be playoff teams by year, for 1970 to 2019.

These projections were calculated by using the the last AP poll before the bowl games for each season from 1970 through 2013, then the playoff selection committee rankings in 2014-19.

The playoff committee has actually matched the AP top four in five of the six playoff years -- though sometimes in different ranking order for those four. The lone exception to the playoff choices was 2014, when Ohio State entered bowl play ranked No. 5 by the AP, behind Baylor, but the playoff committee picked Ohio State.

If a team was banned from postseason, it was eliminated from the playoff grouping for this analysis. This occurred four times - eliminating Oklahoma in 1973 and 1974, Florida in 1984 and Ohio State in 2012. (Ohio State in 2012 was undefeated in Meyer’s first season, but the school was banned from postseason play because of violations under Tressel.)

As for the Buckeyes, playoff appearances would have broken down this way, by coach:

* Woody Hayes (5) - 1970, 1972, 1973, 1974 and 1975. Note that Hayes’ total would be higher if our research extended before 1970.

* Earle Bruce (1) - 1979.

* John Cooper (3) - 1995, 1996 and 1998.

* Jim Tressel (4) - 2002, 2005, 2006 and 2007.

* Urban Meyer (2) - 2014 and 2016.

* Ryan Day (1) - 2019.

Poll/playoff history

Here are the playoff teams since 2014, with the playoff committee’s rankings, and the would-be playoff teams each year from 1970 through 2013 based on AP rankings. The rankings for 2014-19 are the actual playoff seedings; the earlier rankings shown are from the last AP poll before bowl games. When a fifth-place team is shown, a higher ranked team was on probation.

Year Rank School Record 2019 1 LSU 13-0 2019 2 Ohio State 13-0 2019 3 Clemson 13-0 2019 4 Oklahoma 12-1 2018 1 Alabama 13-0 2018 2 Clemson 13-0 2018 3 Notre Dame 12-0 2018 4 Oklahoma 12-1 2017 1 Clemson 12-1 2017 2 Oklahoma 12-1 2017 3 Georgia 12-1 2017 4 Alabama 11-1 2016 1 Alabama 13-0 2016 2 Clemson 12-1 2016 3 Ohio State 11-1 2016 4 Washington 12-1 2015 1 Clemson 13-0 2015 2 Alabama 12-1 2015 3 Michigan State 12-1 2015 4 Oklahoma 11-1 2014 1 Alabama 12-1 2014 2 Oregon 12-1 2014 3 Florida State 13-0 2014 4 Ohio State 12-1 2013 1 Florida State 13-0 2013 2 Auburn 12-1 2013 3 Alabama 11-1 2013 4 Michigan State 12-1 2012 1 Notre Dame 12-0 2012 2 Alabama 12-1 2012 4 Florida 11-1 2012 5 Oregon 11-1 2011 1 LSU 13-0 2011 2 Alabama 11-1 2011 3 Oklahoma State 11-1 2011 4 Stanford 11-1 2010 1 Auburn 13-0 2010 2 Oregon 12-0 2010 3 Texas Christian 12-0 2010 4 Wisconsin 11-1 2009 1 Alabama 13-0 2009 2 Texas 13-0 2009 3 Texas Christian 12-0 2009 4 Cincinnati 12-0 2008 1 Florida 12-1 2008 2 Oklahoma 12-1 2008 3 Texas 11-1 2008 4 Alabama 12-1 2007 1 Ohio State 11-1 2007 2 LSU 11-2 2007 3 Oklahoma 11-2 2007 4 Georgia 10-2 2006 1 Ohio State 12-0 2006 2 Florida 12-1 2006 3 Michigan 11-1 2006 4 LSU 10-2 2005 1 USC 12-0 2005 2 Texas 12-0 2005 3 Penn State 10-1 2005 4 Ohio State 9-2 2004 1 USC 12-0 2004 2 Oklahoma 12-0 2004 3 Auburn 12-0 2004 4 California 10-1 2003 1 USC 11-1 2003 2 LSU 12-1 2003 3 Oklahoma 12-1 2003 4 Michigan 10-2 2002 1 Miami 12-0 2002 2 Ohio State 13-0 2002 3 Iowa 11-1 2002 4 Georgia 12-1 2001 1 Miami 11-0 2001 2 Oregon 10-1 2001 3 Colorado 10-2 2001 4 Nebraska 11-1 2000 1 Oklahoma 12-0 2000 2 Miami 10-1 2000 3 Florida State 11-1 2000 4 Washington 10-1 1999 1 Florida State 11-0 1999 2 Virginia Tech 11-0 1999 3 Nebraska 11-1 1999 4 Wisconsin 9-2 1998 1 Tennessee 12-0 1998 2 Florida State 11-1 1998 3 Ohio State 10-1 1998 4 Kansas State 11-1 1997 1 Michigan 11-0 1997 2 Nebraska 12-0 1997 3 Tennessee 11-1 1997 4 Florida State 10-1 1996 1 Florida State 11-0 1996 2 Arizona State 11-0 1996 3 Florida 11-1 1996 4 Ohio State 10-1 1995 1 Nebraska 11-0 1995 2 Florida 12-0 1995 3 Northwestern 10-1 1995 4 Ohio State 11-1 1994 1 Nebraska 12-0 1994 2 Penn State 11-0 1994 3 Miami 10-1 1994 4 Colorado 10-1 1993 1 Florida State 11-1 1993 2 Nebraska 11-0 1993 3 West Virginia 11-0 1993 4 Notre Dame 10-1 1992 1 Miami 11-0 1992 2 Alabama 12-0 1992 3 Florida State 10-1 1992 4 Texas A & M 12-0 1991 1 Miami 11-0 1991 2 Washington 11-0 1991 3 Florida 10-1 1991 4 Michigan 10-1 1990 1 Colorado 10-1-1 1990 2 Georgia Tech 10-0-1 1990 3 Texas 10-1 1990 4 Miami 9-2 1989 1 Colorado 11-0 1989 2 Miami 10-1 1989 3 Michigan 10-1 1989 4 Notre Dame 11-1 1988 1 Notre Dame 11-0 1988 2 Miami 10-1 1988 3 West Virginia 11-0 1988 4 Florida State 10-1 1987 1 Oklahoma 11-0 1987 2 Miami 11-0 1987 3 Florida State 10-1 1987 4 Syracuse 11-0 1986 1 Miami 11-0 1986 2 Penn State 11-0 1986 3 Oklahoma 10-1 1986 4 Michigan 10-1 1985 1 Penn State 11-0 1985 2 Miami 10-1 1985 3 Oklahoma 10-1 1985 4 Iowa 10-1 1984 1 Brigham Young 12-0 1984 2 Oklahoma 9-1-1 1984 4 Washington 10-1 1984 5 Nebraska 9-2 1983 1 Nebraska 12-0 1983 2 Texas 11-0 1983 3 Auburn 10-1 1983 4 Illinois 10-1 1982 1 Georgia 11-0 1982 2 Penn State 10-1 1982 3 Nebraska 11-1 1982 4 SMU 10-0-1 1981 1 Clemson 11-0 1981 2 Georgia 9-1-0 1981 3 Alabama 9-1-1 1981 4 Nebraska 9-2 1980 1 Georgia 11-0 1980 2 Florida State 10-1 1980 3 Pitt 10-1 1980 4 Oklahoma 9-2 1979 1 Ohio State 11-0 1979 2 Alabama 11-0 1979 3 USC 10-0-1 1979 4 Florida State 11-0 1978 1 Penn State 11-0 1978 2 Alabama 10-1 1978 3 USC 11-1 1978 4 Oklahoma 10-1 1977 1 Texas 11-0 1977 2 Oklahoma 10-1 1977 3 Alabama 10-1 1977 4 Michigan 10-1 1976 1 Pitt 11-0 1976 2 Michigan 10-1 1976 3 USC 10-1 1976 4 Maryland 11-0 1975 1 Ohio State 11-0 1975 2 Texas A & M 10-0 1975 3 Oklahoma 10-1 1975 4 Alabama 10-1 1974 2 Alabama 11-0 1974 3 Ohio State 10-1 1974 4 Michigan 10-1 1974 5 USC 9-1-1 1973 1 Alabama 11-0 1973 3 Notre Dame 10-0 1973 4 Ohio State 9-0-1 1973 5 Michigan 10-0-1 1972 1 USC 11-0 1972 2 Oklahoma 10-1 1972 3 Ohio State 9-1 1972 4 Alabama 10-1 1971 1 Nebraska 12-0 1971 2 Alabama 11-0 1971 3 Oklahoma 10-1 1971 4 Michigan 11-0 1970 1 Texas 10-0 1970 2 Ohio State 9-0 1970 3 Nebraska 10-0-1 1970 4 Tennessee 10-1

Rich Exner, data analysis editor for cleveland.com, writes about numbers on a variety of topics. Follow on Twitter @RichExner. See more data-related stories at cleveland.com/datacentral. Previous Buckeye Numbers features can be found at this link.