1981 Ohio State Buckeyes football team
American college football team season

The 1981 Ohio State Buckeyes football team was an American football team represented the Ohio State University as a member of the Big Ten Conference during the 1981 Big Ten season. In their third season under head coach Earle Bruce, the Buckeyes compiled a 9–3 record (6–2 in conference games), tied with Iowa for the Big Ten championship, and outscored opponents by a total of 356 to 225. They concluded the season with a 31–28 victory over Navy in the 1981 Liberty Bowl.
The team's statistical leaders included:
Quarterback Art Schlichter ranked third in the conference with 2,551 passing yards and 2,509 total yards and fifth with a 52.3 pass completion percentage.
Running back Tim Spencer led the conference with 12 rushing touchdowns and ranked second with 1,217 rushing yards and 1,427 yards from scrimmage.
Wide receiver Gary Williams ranked third in the conference with 50 receptions and fourth with 941 receiving yards.
Placekicker Bob Atha led the conference with 88 points scored and 44 extra points made and ranked second with 13 field goals made and a 68.4% field goal percentage.
The team played its home games at Ohio Stadium in Columbus Ohio.
“1981 Ohio State Buckeyes football team” enters the record as american college football team season. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ohio, State and Buckeyes can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“1981 Ohio State Buckeyes football team” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Ohio, State and Buckeyes provides the most credible route into that argument.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16197761. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1981.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “1981 Ohio State Buckeyes football team”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 1981 Ohio State Buckeyes football team primary sources, 1981 Ohio State Buckeyes football team archive and Ohio research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “1981 Ohio State Buckeyes football team”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “1981 Ohio State Buckeyes football team” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.