The freshman seasons for Wisconsin tight end Troy Fumagalli and Ohio State center Billy Price ended very differently.
Fumagalli and the Badgers departed Lucas Oil Stadium carrying the program's biggest loss in 37 years, a 59-0 shellacking by Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship. Price and the Buckeyes were granted the No. 4 in the inaugural College Football Playoff and, a month later, captured their eighth national championship.
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Three years later, both Fumagalli and Price are back in Indianapolis, though neither redshirt senior nor their respective teams are focusing on the 2014 blowout.
Ohio State — four-point underdogs — scored on a Cardale Jones' 39-yard touchdown pass to Devin Smith one minute and 59 seconds into the game and never looked back. The Buckeyes built a 38-0 halftime lead, racked up 558 total yards (to Wisconsin's 258), forced four turnovers and averaged 7.8 yards per carry.
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Fumagalli, still a relatively little-known redshirt freshman playing in just his 12th career game, had two receptions for 24 yards in the loss. It was the first of two Big Ten Championship losses he's been a part of (2016 vs. Penn State) and while he admits the Ohio State loss still rents property in his mind, it's never used as a team-wide motivational tool.
"It's not brought up in team meetings or settings like that," he told HERO Sports this week. "Its just a little motivation tool I keep in the back of my mind. But a lot of the focus in the locker room and on this team is about this week [and] this year. [There's] not much said about that. Just focused on one more game and beating Ohio State this week."
Price, who's chasing a third playoff bid in his career, has more fond memories of Dec. 6, 2014, but he also says the Buckeyes' fourth- and fifth-year players never talk about it.
"It's a different team [and] different year," he said. "So there's a situational comparison but the teams are different so there's not much reflection . . . The teams grow and they continue to develop both offensively and defensively for both us and Wisconsin, so not much to compare with."
Wisconsin and Ohio State might not be thinking or talking about it this week, but — as Fumagalli alluded too — it's a safe bet that the Badgers would love to finally replace the memories of a 59-0 drubbing with a playoff-clinching win.
