The day after Ohio State crushed Wisconsin 59-0 in the Big Ten title game last season, Urban Meyer asked the defensive players in the team meeting room to stand.
Since he had become coach, Meyer told them, he had waited for this moment to bestow this compliment on them.
“I give you,” he said, according to former cornerback Doran Grant, “the Silver Bullets.”
The room erupted. The Silver Bullets nickname for Ohio State’s defense had been coined two decades earlier. Now, the standard that it represented had been achieved.
It was cemented in the College Football Playoff.