‘Captain Buckeye’ Jack Sawyer, Ohio State senior leader, celebrates coming full circle

ARLINGTON, Texas – A considerable distance from the stage where the confetti would soon fall, where Ohio State head coach Ryan Day would hoist the Cotton Bowl trophy and quarterback Will Howard and running back Jack Sawyer would be named MVPs in their respective sides of the ball. , a Buckeyes communications representative squeezed a football in the crook of his arm around the 9-yard line. He had been holding it for quite some time, at least from the moment the final buzzer sounded, but maybe a little longer, around the 2:13 mark of the fourth quarter, when Sawyer took it away from Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers and galloped. 83 yards down the sideline for an unforgettable goal that propelled his team to the national championship game. There was a moment between those two snaps when Sawyer, a revered senior and team captain, confided the memory to Jerry Emig, the program’s longtime sports information director, with very specific instructions.

“Jack gave it to me,” Emig recalled, “and he said, ‘Jerry, this is the ball I scored with. Keep it. Don’t give it away.'”

So Emig proclaimed the ball during an on-field celebration that stretched from one side of AT&T Stadium to the other, from the formal presentation near the same end zone where Sawyer solidified a 28-14 victory over Texas to the ” Carmen Ohio”. by the Buckeyes marching band just yards from the scene of Ewers’ crippling fumble. Emig was still holding that ball more than 20 minutes later, when the Ohio State locker room opened to the media, and he repeated the origin story another time or two. It remains to be seen whether it will ultimately end up back with Sawyer, who will play the final game of his college career against Notre Dame at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on Jan. 20, or whether it will be prominently displayed in a trophy case inside from the Woody Hayes Athletic Center. seen. But his place in the history of the program is unquestionable.

And what a whirlwind these last six weeks have been for Sawyer, one of the most passionate players on the Buckeyes’ roster who endured an emotional breakdown after a fourth straight loss to Michigan, his breakdown spanning three acts in three. different places. at Ohio Stadium, all of them tinged with pepper spray because of a melee gone wrong. There was a verbal confrontation with Michigan defensive tackle Mason Graham, who angered Sawyer by referring to Ohio State as a derogatory term for the female anatomy. Sawyer responded by reminding Graham that the Wolverines would not be participating in this year’s College Football Playoff. There was the theft of a Michigan flag that Sawyer ripped off the pole his opponents were trying to place at midfield for the second time in three years. Sawyer caught the corn and the blue flag in his right hand before throwing them onto the grass in disgust. And then there were the shouts up close at tight ends coach Keenan Bailey, whose shoulders Sawyer grabbed in frustration as Day watched silently from a few feet away. “They’re not going to plant a flag in our field again, brother!” Sawyer screamed in Bailey’s face, his voice breaking on more than one occasion. “F— this s—, man. F— these guys. Planting a flag in our field? F— you!”

The rawness that poured out of Sawyer on that frigid November afternoon reflected both his personal chagrin as an Ohio native forced to endure one-race losses to The Team Up North and the unwavering reminder that his historic 2021 recruiting class was still without reach all levels. objective that he set out to achieve. Sawyer and his classmates, many of whom he convinced to bypass the NFL Draft for a chance to finally right their wrongs, will leave Ohio State with zero wins over Michigan and zero Big Ten titles. These imperfections cannot be erased. That’s why the Buckeyes came into the postseason well aware that anything short of winning the national championship would be seen as an abject failure and could even cost Day his job.

The message has radiated from player to player through a star-studded senior class that finished second in the national rankings behind Alabama, a group packed with seven five-star prospects, two of whom were quarterbacks, and 14 players ranked among the top 100 recruits. in general. There was five-star pass rusher JT Tuimoloau, a vaunted pass rusher who turned in one of the best individual performances in program history against Penn State two years ago, but who has rarely harassed quarterbacks with any degree of consistency since. . There was five-star wide receiver Emeka Egbuka, who is now the leading receiver in Ohio State history, but a player who told reporters earlier this week that “I have absolutely no hardware to show.” There was outspoken cornerback Denzel Burke, whose March quote describing this season as “elegant or nothing” continues to generate conversation 10 months later, especially now that Ohio State is one game away from any outcome. There was running back TreVeyon Henderson, whose long list of injuries and sporadic difficulties running between the tackles justified Ole Miss transfer Quinshon Judkins’ addition to the portal. And, of course, there was Sawyer, the first recruit to commit to the Day on February 3, 2019, and a player whose physical gifts never matched his statistical production. They all entered the College Football Playoff with something to prove.

“That’s why we all chose to come to Ohio State,” said left tackle Donovan Jackson, another member of the 2021 recruiting class. “That’s why we all chose to come back to the state of Ohio.”

A trip to the national title game came down to this: Ohio State led 21-14 late in the fourth quarter; Texas advanced to the goal line with a 27-yard completion from Ewers to receiver Matthew Golden and consecutive pass interference penalties against the Buckeyes. It was at that moment, with 4:04 left and the ball at the 1-yard line in a goal-to-score situation, that someone’s voice rang over the phone line in the Buckeyes’ coaches’ box on the field. “Wow, they scored fast there,” the anonymous staff member said. To which defensive coordinator Jim Knowles growled a response that would prove surprisingly prescient. “They haven’t scored yet,” Knowles responded.

From there, Knowles’ defense stuffed consecutive running plays to set the Longhorns back 7 yards, at which point passing became their only viable option. Sawyer drove into the backfield on third-and-goal, pressuring Ewers to throw a throw toward freshman wide receiver Ryan Wingo, and the ball fell harmlessly incomplete. It was the umpteenth time Sawyer came close to leveling his former roommate, the former No. 1 overall recruit in the country who spent four months with the Buckeyes as a true freshman in 2021 before transferring to Texas. Time and time again Friday night, Ewers nimbly threw the ball a millisecond or two before Sawyer could drag it down, twice completing desperate checks on a drive that tied the game at 14-14 late in the third quarter. But Ewers’ luck would soon run out.

On fourth-and-goal from the 8-yard line, Sawyer dug his shoulder under right tackle Cameron Williams’ pads and threw both arms toward Ewers as the quarterback looked for open space. He snapped the ball and pushed Ewers to the ground with astonishing fluidity, the loose ball bouncing gently into his hands as he spun upfield. Sawyer had his fun and rumbled into the end zone with a convoy of teammates chasing him from behind.

“It was surreal,” Sawyer said. “I felt like I was in quicksand. I was just trying to get to the end zone real quick. I looked back and [thought]”I wish I had a blocker,” because I knew there were a couple of guys with skills there, and I don’t have wheels like them. But man, it was a special moment.”

And one that will never be forgotten. From the stage where Sawyer and Howard addressed the crowd, and where Day was applauded by a fan base that had loathed him six weeks earlier, the celebration spread to the bench behind Ohio State’s bench. There, players donned white championship jerseys and black championship caps to pose for photos with fans in field-level suites. They shouted with loved ones in the nearby family section and signed autographs for fans who threw souvenirs their way. “Let’s fuck, baby!” Sawyer’s sister, Kyla, shouted from her position in the front row alongside his parents Michelle and Lyle Sawyer, who made frantic gestures toward their son. If Sawyer hadn’t been clutching his trophy tightly with both hands, protecting it from the swarms of reporters with cameras following his every move, he might have climbed the stands to join them. The thought seemed to briefly cross his mind.

Instead, Sawyer left the AT&T Stadium field through a tunnel above which a gentleman wearing a white Ohio State jersey contorted his body so players could see his inscription. “NATTY BOUND” read the custom stitching on the shoulder blades, where a name would traditionally be found. And the fan yelled to anyone who would listen that he bought the item in February. “Come on Bucks!” He shouted as a TV reporter took a B-roll of his outfit.

The party that awaited Sawyer in the locker room was even grander, with teammate after teammate congratulating him on a performance for the ages. One by one, they slapped his shoulder pads, sang his praises, and hugged him. Because six weeks after Sawyer plummeted to an emotional nadir, his rebirth had brought Ohio State to the precipice of a national title.

“You’re the number one Buckeye of all time,” Egbuka said as Sawyer walked past his locker. “You are Captain Buckeye.”

Michael Cohen covers college football and basketball for FOX Sports with an emphasis on the Big Ten. Follow him on Twitter @Michael_Cohen13.

[Want great stories delivered right to your inbox? Create or log in to your FOX Sports account, follow leagues, teams and players to receive a personalized newsletter daily.]