8. 1930-33 Michigan (21-1-1)

This run culminated in a national championship and was marred only by a 20-7 loss to Ohio State in 1931 and a 0-0 tie with Minnesota in 1933. Between those two games, the Wolverines won 14 straight in conference play by a combined score of 280-18, with only Northwestern (in 1932), Illinois (in 1933) and Iowa (in 1933, and, no, Kirk Ferentz wasn’t the coach back then) scoring six points apiece. Still, all four titles were split, as the Wolverines shared with 5-0 Northwestern in 1930, 5-1 Northwestern and Purdue squads in 1931, a 5-0-1 Purdue in 1932 and, ahem, 2-0-4 Minnesota in 1933.

7. 1976-78 Michigan (21-3)

While the Buckeyes were flattening everyone outside of the Mitten State (see the next entry), the Wolverines were flopping exactly one time a year … but not against their main rival. U-M lost to Purdue (16-14) in 1976, to Minnesota (16-0) in 1977 and Michigan State (24-15) in 1978. The one-loss Wolverines, led by option QB Rick Leach, shared Big Ten titles in each of those seasons (with OSU for two seasons, and then with MSU in a season the Spartans were under NCAA probation), but they also swept Ohio State over three seasons for just the second time since World War II and had a winning margin of 29.4 points.

6. 1972-77 Ohio State (43-4-1)

Yes, every season but 1975 featured a shared title in this Buckeye run. But the numbers … Five non-wins in 48 Big Ten games over six seasons — all to schools from the state of Michigan: A 19-12 loss to Michigan State in 1972, a 16-13 loss to MSU in 1974, a 22-0 loss to Michigan in 1976 and a 14-6 loss to U-M in 1977 (along with, of course the 10-10 tie with U-M in ’73) — for an average loss of 9.5 points. The 43 wins, meanwhile, featured OSU punishing the Big Ten by a combined 1,564-340 margin — an average win of 28.5 points. That includes the 1973 season, in which the Buckeyes outscored the Big Ten by 270 in eight games, and the 1975 season — the lone outright title — that had OSU outscoring the Big Ten by 241 over eight games.

5. 1901-04 Michigan (14-0-1)

Yost’s bunch were the then-Western Conference’s OGs: the Wolverines outscored their conference foes 502-24 over four seasons, allowing just 12 points to Minnesota (six in 1902 and six more in a tie that split the 1903 title) and 12 to Chicago (in a 22-12 win in 1904). Still, the Wolverines shared their titles in 1901 (with 2-0 Wisconsin),

4. 2021-23 Michigan (29-1)

The one loss? A 37-33 stumble against Michigan State in East Lansing on Oct. 30, 2021. Since then, however, the Wolverines have won 25 straight against conference foes (including three Big Ten title games) — the third-longest streak in Big Ten history, behind only OSU’s 30 from 201215 and 26 from 2018-21. In all, the Wolverines have outscored Big Ten foes 1,085-439 over their threeseason span, an average margin of 21.5 points.

3. 2005-09 Ohio State (36-4)

The Buckeyes piled up three outright titles (2006, ’07 and ’09) and split crowns at 7-1 with Penn State — which beat the Buckeyes by seven points in ’05 and ’08 — in the other two seasons. (The Nittany Lions, meanwhile, would have won outright crowns of their own those years, knocking the Buckeyes out of this list entirely, had they not fallen to Michigan by two points in ’05 and Iowa by one point in ’08.) Along the way, OSU won 20 consecutive Big Ten games from 2005-07, with at least 20 points scored in 19 of the 20. Depending on your view of the NCAA’s stance on student benefits in these days of new NIL rules, you could tack on the 2010 season to this run; OSU went 7-1 to split the Big Ten title with Michigan State and Wisconsin but vacated the victories as part of the fallout of the “Tattoogate” scandal.

2. 1988-92 Michigan (35-2-3)

Two pairs of outright titles for the Wolverines, in 1988-89 under Schembechler and 1991-92 under Gary Moeller, bookended a 1990 season in which U-M, at 6-2, shared the title with Illinois, Iowa and Michigan State (with Iowa heading to the Rose Bowl). In all, the Wolverines outscored their opponents, 1,395-458, over the 40 games, with their only losses coming by two total points over a span of eight days in 1990 — 28-27 to MSU on Oct. 13 and 24-23 to Iowa on Oct. 20.

1. 2017-20 Ohio State (34-2)

Even with a East Division forcing the Buckeyes to face Michigan and Penn State during the regular season every year, OSU lost just twice during this run, and to West Division foes: 55-24 at Iowa in November 2017 and 49-20 at Purdue in October 2018. From there, the Buckeyes ripped off 20 consecutive wins against conference foes during their time as conference champs, including title game wins in Indianapolis against Northwestern (by 31 in 2018), Wisconsin (by 13 in 2019) and Northwestern again (by 12 in 2020). (The Buckeyes beat Wisconsin by six points in the 2017 title game.)

Contact Ryan Ford at rford@freepress.com . Follow him on X (which used to be Twitter, y’know?) @theford .