Mike Doss and Donnie Nickey were welcomed to college football with a big fat loss to the Miami Hurricanes.
The 1999 Buckeyes opened their schedule with a rare ass-kicking as they struggled to restock a generational team that graduated all of its leadership and had three stars taken in the NFL Draft's 1st round.
This sequel wore the exact same uniforms - but there was little else similar to what the program had put on the field a season earlier. The 1999 team looked more like 1988 than 1998.
Freshman Austin Moherman, as it turned out, was not Joe Germaine 2.