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Michael McLeod
HAD TO SHARE!!!!! Beautifully written, by the way.
Ohio State defensive end Jack Sawyer returns a fumble recovery for a touchdown against Texas during the Cotton Bowl. / Adam Cairns / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
Three steps after the snap, Jack Sawyer saw nothing but daylight between him and a familiar face.
Locked into a tense battle that was coming down to the wire with a spot in the national championship game on the line, there was Texas Longhorns quarterback Quinn Ewers looking downfield and unaware of what was approaching from his blind side on fourth-and-ballgame.
The Ohio State Buckeyes pass rusher was intimately familiar with Ewers, not only in the 57 game minutes prior at the Cotton Bowl where he constantly harassed the signal-caller into quick and errant throws throughout, but from the brief time they shared as freshman-year roommates in Columbus, Ohio.
The two had joked earlier in the week about exchanging pleasantries at some point and catching up.
Neither likely had in mind what transpired late in the game, however, just as Sawyer turned the corner on Longhorns right tackle Cameron Williams and saw nothing but a clear path to a white jersey with burnt orange trimming and Ohio State immortality in tow.
A stop would have been enough on fourth-and-goal in the red zone to preserve a memorable win in the College Football Playoff semifinal on Friday night. A simple sack would have sufficed between former five-star recruits who have come to embody their respective programs this season.
Sawyer, though, was not content with just doing enough. Not since the loss to the Michigan Wolverines cast a pall over the scarlet-and-gray’s season and made this postseason run the only thing capable of separating abject failure over the course of the 2024 campaign and the promised land of ultimate success to wash away any bad feelings.
So instead of just wrapping up and taking Ewers to the ground, he shoved him aside. He stripped the ball out of his hands. He then proceeded to showcase an unknown burst of speed to race 83 yards with a convoy of teammates for a touchdown that put a flourish on a hard-fought, 28–14 victory that sends Ohio State to Atlanta to play the Notre Dame Fighting Irish for the national title Jan. 20.
“I blacked out there for a second,” said Sawyer, who immediately had to make his way through throngs of mobbing teammates between the end zone and some oxygen on the bench. “I felt like I was in quicksand. I just was glad that I got a block from the guys running behind me and God blessed me with the ability to make a big-time play.”
In the pantheon of big-time players making big-time plays, Sawyer enshrined himself with the effort.
That’s no easy feat at the third-winningest college football program of all time, but it was a fitting show of effort for one of the team’s captains at the exact moment something above and beyond was called for.
Quinshon Judkins runs the ball in for a touchdown against Texas. / Aaron E. Martinez/Austin American-Statesman / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
“I’m not surprised, by any means. That guy has been playing possessed the last month,” said quarterback Will Howard, who guided a 13-play, 88-yard touchdown drive just prior to the strip sack to give Ohio State the lead it didn’t relinquish. “I had my face in my towel when the ball was snapped, and I looked up and I saw him just strip, take the ball and go. I was like, oh my God.”
He wasn’t alone, there was a lot of O-H … M-G going on among the 74,527 in attendance at AT&T Stadium.
This was far from the Buckeyes’ blowouts when they looked like world beaters in the first round against the Tennessee Volunteers or in the Rose Bowl against the top-seeded Oregon Ducks.
This was the type of gritty, close game Ohio State had seen before, but had somehow found a way to come out on the wrong side too many times to meet the abnormally high standards that define the program.
It happened when Howard slid too late in the first meeting against Oregon, handing the Buckeyes their first loss in mid-October. It nearly happened in a close one against the Penn State Nittany Lions. It happened in the inexplicable 13–10 stunner against Michigan in late November that knocked them out of the Big Ten title race.
Against Texas, as things got tight on the scoreboard and for fans worried about a repeat of disappointment, Ohio State put a full stop to the narrative. The Buckeyes came through, in the same building where they last won a title a decade ago, to put them on the doorstep of another golden cylinder and validation around Columbus.
“I believe that the resilience that we’ve had to show throughout the entire season and through some of these guys’ careers has led us to this opportunity to win this game and go play for a national championship,” coach Ryan Day said. “We talked before the game about how you leave a legacy is to become your own legend. There’s some guys on this team today that, I believe, will become legends in Ohio State history.”
Chief among them will be Sawyer, who has played in every game for the team since he was once the state’s top recruit out of nearby Pickerington.
He is one of the veterans who Day turned to in the wake of that loss to the team up north, entrusting the senior with leadership on and off the field.
Sawyer has delivered in spades, giving speeches when needed and making sure his teammates are using every bit of the added time between rounds to watch extra film to wring out every edge possible.
It paid off Friday night deep in the heart of Texas. Sawyer was a constant thorn in ex-Buckeye Ewers’s side and added three tackles (one for loss), two pass breakups and nearly a half-dozen pressures. As he abused one of Texas’s normally reliable tackles, fellow edge JT Tuimoloau was equally dynamic, overcoming a first-half ankle injury to finish third on the team in tackles to go with 1.5 sacks.
Both were part of a wave of upperclassmen who returned after last season’s Cotton Bowl trip in which everything that could go wrong did in a dispiriting loss to the Missouri Tigers. They returned for games like this—to impact them like they did against Texas.
Offensively, that was the case with a slew of key contributors. Senior tailback TreVeyon Henderson led the team in rushing (42 yards) and took a short screen play 75 yards for a touchdown seconds before halftime. Wideout Emeka Egbuka moved the sticks consistently with five catches for 51 yards and allowed Carnell Tate to often come right off his hip on crossing routes that freed him up for a game-high seven catches for 87 yards.
Both more than made up for a quiet night from freshman Jeremiah Smith, who had just one catch for three yards and was mostly used as a decoy that drew double—and sometimes triple—coverage after going off in the first two rounds of the playoff.
Afterward, as each of the older Buckeyes celebrated and finally started to relax following a third win-or-go-home game, they made it a point to find Day and embrace him. The words exchanged were simple but poignant in the moment, underscoring for all the external talk about their coach being on the hot seat, nothing had changed inside the Ohio State football facilities in terms of the belief in their leadership.
“I love that guy so much. He means so much to us on a daily basis. The things he’ll do for you, he goes to bat for all of us,” Sawyer said of Day. “He always has our backs and I just feel so happy for him and his family that we got this win. And now we’re headed to the national championship.
“I love the state. I love Columbus, Ohio. I love these people. I love this damn team so much.”
Day, who saved his warmest postgame embrace for his family that has borne the brunt of the negative side of being a head coach at a program like Ohio State, also gets credit for bringing in plenty of new players to complement the existing core that had fallen short in the three years prior.
Day celebrates with Sawyer and Howard after winning the Cotton Bowl and securing a spot in the national title game. / Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
He invested heavily in recruiting Smith from South Florida to join an already crowded receivers room. He pitched former Ole Miss running back Quinshon Judkins on sharing carries and distributing the workload, which he did against Texas with two rushing touchdowns in the red zone that saw him alternate between powering and weaving between one of the best defenses in the country.
Day also seized upon Nick Saban’s retirement from the Alabama Crimson Tide, quickly snapping up former freshman All-American Caleb Downs and turning him into a monster during this stretch run with the help of defensive coordinator Jim Knowles.
Against the Longhorns, Downs was everywhere, just as he was in the prior three games. He notched five tackles from his hybrid safety position, one of which saved a long touchdown in the first half, and included pulling down the game-sealing interception of Ewers in the waning seconds of the fourth quarter.
“I decided to come here to be a part of the brotherhood,” Downs said. “It’s a special moment to be a part of the team and have everything come together at the end. God makes the plays happen when he needs to happen. So he brought us in a close game and we came through and fought.”
Ohio State also dipped into the portal to grab Howard, who has been on a remarkable heater during the playoffs. He finished the Cotton Bowl with MVP honors following a 24-of-33 passing effort for 289 yards and a touchdown (one interception) while picking up several key third downs in the second half with his legs on quarterback runs.
“The way this guy has come in, from the spring, and taken this leadership role has done wonders to this team and this offense. There is no one more deserving of this offensive MVP [award] than this guy right here,” Sawyer said. “We’ve got that much confidence in this guy right here.”
Such confidence was lacking across the sideline as Texas saw its season end in dramatic fashion for the second straight year.
Against the Washington Huskies in the Sugar Bowl last season, the Longhorns were in the red zone and one play away from the national championship stage. Instead they fell short, less an indictment on the state of their program as much as it has been a reminder about that thin line between glory in the College Football Playoff and heartbreak.
“We felt this pain last year,” Texas safety Michael Taaffe said. “Knowing that we got so close, I saw the vision for this team. Just knowing that vision got left short, it hurts.”
For a program that has won as much as Ohio State, it is not immune to such hurt. The Buckeyes felt it, this season included.
But it doesn’t mean much now. Not with the Irish on the horizon and redemption in sights.
“I mean, it’s not finished, though. It’s not finished,” Day said. “What a difference a year makes, but we’re not done yet.”
Without missing a beat, Sawyer, his Cotton Bowl patch hanging off his jersey by threads to underscore his play on the field, followed up much as he had done to close the game.
“I second that."
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