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12-0, on probation or whatever.  Undefeated with no hardware.  How do you view them?
Braxton Miller at QB, ran for 1200+ yds.  Hyde at RB.  Brown and Smith at WR.  Shazier with a lot of TFL, Simon with 9 sacks.  Not many INTs.  

Are they held in high esteem?  Forgotten?  Just wondering.

So would a half-dozen other teams, lol.

So would a half-dozen other teams, lol.

I was thinking the same thing.  They were good but not great.  The 2011 team was 6-7 and the 2012 team was 12-0 but the gap between them wasn't actually all that big.  
2012 games decided by one possession (8 points):

• Beat 3-9 Cal by a TD, 35-28 at home
• Beat 7-6 MSU by a point, 17-16 on the road
• Beat 4-8 Indiana by a FG, 52-49 on the road
• Beat 6-7 Purdue by a TD, 29-22 at home
• Beat 8-6 Wisconsin by a TD, 21-14 on the road
• Beat 8-5 Michigan by 5 points, 26-21 at home

They were 12-0 but half of the wins came by a TD or less against mediocre (Michigan, Wisconsin, MSU), bad (PU) and downright horrible (IU, Cal) teams.  

2011 games decided by one possession (8 points):

• Beat Toledo by 5, 27-22 at home
• Lost to MSU by a FG, 10-7 at home
• Lost to UNL by a TD, 34-27 on the road
• Beat Wisconsin by 4, 33-29 at home
• Lost to Purdue by a FG, 26-23 on the road
• Lost to PSU by 6, 20-14 at home
• Lost to Michigan by 6, 40-34 on the road
• Lost to Florida by a TD, 24-17 in the Gator Bowl

They were only 6-7 but went 2-6 in games decided by a one possession.  

The epitome of this is the two Purdue games and I can speak to this from experience because I attended both.  

First off, let me set the stage for the 2011 Purdue game.  2011 was during the Legends/Leaders era and the Buckeyes were in the Leaders Division with Wisconsin, Penn State, Purdue, Illinois, and Indiana.  The Purdue game was played on November 12 in West Lafayette.  Heading into that weekend the Leaders Division Standings were:

• 5-0 Penn State 
• 3-2 Ohio State
• 3-2 Wisconsin
• 2-3 Purdue
• 2-3 Illinois
• 0-6 Indiana

On that day Penn State lost at home to Nebraska.  The Buckeyes already had a win over Wisconsin and hadn't played Penn State yet so technically when the Nebraska/PSU game ended the Buckeyes controlled their own destiny to get to the inaugural B1GCG.  At that point Ohio State was tied with Wisconsin but had the H2H tiebreaker and was one game behind PSU but a win there would have put the Buckeyes in control.  I was in the stands in West Lafayette checking scores on my phone and announced to my neighbors that Penn State's loss meant that Ohio State could get to the B1GCG.  Then it all fell apart.  

The end of the 2011 Purdue/Ohio State game:
Ohio State forced a punt and got the ball at their own 34 yard line down 20-14 with 6:15 to go.  The Buckeyes then drove down the field and scored a TD to tie it up with 0:55 to go.  At that point the Buckeyes should have kicked an easy XP and played a little D to get out of West Lafayette with a 21-20 win and control of their own destiny in the B1G-Leaders.  Instead the XP was blocked.  Purdue threw an interception as time expired and Ohio State kicked a FG in the first OT but Purdue scored a TD and won 26-23.  

The end of the 2012 Purdue/Ohio State game:
Ohio State was trailing by eight points and got intercepted with just 2:40 to go:

• 1st and 10 Purdue from their 18 with 2:40 to go:  False Start.  
• 1st and 15 Purdue from their 13 with 2:40 to go:  Pass for 1 yard, time out tOSU.  
• 2nd and 14 Purdue from their 14 with 1:48 to go:  Rush for 1 yard, time out Purdue.  
• 3rd and 13 Purdue from their 15 with 1:31 to go:  Rush for 7 yards, time out Purdue.  
• 4th and 6 Purdue from their 22 with 0:47 to go:  Purdue punt returned to the tOSU 39.  
• 1st and 10 tOSU from their 39 with 0:37 to go:  Pass for 39 yards.  
• 1st and 10 tOSU from PU's 22 with 0:28 to go:  Pass for 8 yards.  
• 2nd and 2 tOSU from PU's 14 with 0:23 to go:  Pass Incomplete.  
• 3rd and 2 tOSU from PU's 14 with 0:16 to go:  Rush for 3 yards.  
• 1st and 10 tOSU from PU's 11 with 0:15 to go:  Pass Incomplete (spiked to kill clock)
• 2nd and 10 tOSU from PU's 11 with 0:12 to go:  Pass Incomplete
• 3rd and 10 tOSU from PU's 11 with 0:08 to go:  Defensive Pass Interference on Purdue
• 1st and Goal tOSU from PU's 2 with 0:03 to go:  Pass for TD

At that point Ohio State STILL trailed 22-20 but they got the 2pt conversion on another Kenny Guiton pass and went to OT.  

In OT Ohio State scored easily on four rushes and a pass and made the XP then held PU to just five yards on four plays to walk away with a 29-22 win.  

The results of both of those PU/tOSU games were ridiculously improbable.  The blocked XP in the 2011 game was a 10,000:1 thing that just happens once in a while and that allowed PU to push it to OT.  Meanwhile, Ohio State managing to score in 2:40 from their own 39 AND get the 2pt Conversion AND win in OT in 2012 was equally improbable.  

Those two Purdue games really illustrate how those two seasons went for Ohio State.  2011 was the season of Murphy's Law.  Anything that could go wrong did.  2012 was the season of luck.  Anything that could go wrong didn't.  If both teams had gone .500 in close games then the 2012 team would have been 9-3 and the 2011 team would have been 8-5.  IMHO, that is about how good those two teams were.  The 2012 team wasn't as good as the 12-0 looks and the 2011 team wasn't as bad as the 6-7 looks.  

It was, but in a way it ended up working out pretty well.  I agree with you, they were not that good of a team.  With no ban they would likely have been destroyed either in the B1GCG or in the RoseBowl.  In theory, with a win over UNL in the B1GCG they would have had an argument for the 2012 BCSNCG against Notre Dame and they would have had a good chance to win that but I think most of the country would view that with an asterix.  Neither Notre Dame nor Ohio State were better than Bama, Florida, Oregon, or Stanford.  

they would have been in the bcs title game with a b1g ccg win no question. bama would be out.
no way is an undefeated osu or nd getting left out for a 1-loss bama. undefeated bama it would be anyone's guess, but no questions with 1 loss.

If OSU won the B10CG and ND that year, neither in particularly incredible ways, are they an unimpressive national champion?  
Looking at the stats, the pass D was very poor for a top team.  The offense was limited in the passing game, but efficient.  Braxton Miller seemed to be a one-man gang.  Corey Brown was an elite punt returner and the kicking game was solid.  

Would the fictional '12 OSU champs be remembered behind the '14 and '02 teams or no?

THey'd have signed a new 50-year deal with NBC.....

The 2002 team had a lot of close calls and I think a lot of non-tOSU fans use that to run that team down.  Sometimes even tOSU fans do it to build up the David vs Goliath view of Ohio State's win over Miami.  I think that is a little off because I think that the 2002 tOSU team played a REALLY tough schedule.  OOC they blew out the PAC Champion WSU and a pretty strong B12 TTech team.  The Big11Ten was also ridiculous that year.  Michigan beat Florida in the Outback Bowl, Purdue beat Washington in the Sun Bowl, Wisconsin beat Colorado in the Alamo Bowl, Minnesota beat Arkansas in the MusicCity Bowl.  Even the bowl losers were respectable.  

The 2002 team, like the 2012 team had six games decided by one possession.  The difference is that the 2002 team played a better schedule.  

The 2014 team is different simply because the playoff changes things.  For the pre-playoff era people can say that a team got lucky or shouldn't have been there or whatever but in the playoff era the champion has a built in legitimacy advantage simply because they will, by definition, have finished their season with back-to-back wins over highly respected teams.  Also, since nearly everybody has a CG now the playoff champion will usually finish with not two but three straight wins over high-end teams.  2014 definitely has some warts with the two-TD home loss to a mediocre VaTech squad being chief among them but the final three games pretty much erased all memory of the earlier warts.  That team finished with a 59-0 shellacking of a very good Wisconsin then a 42-35 win over Saban's Bama Dynasty, then a 42-20 win that didn't even feel that close over a highly respected and undefeated Oregon team.