I'd always thought people who said Ryan Day should be fired for losing to Michigan in 2021, 2022, and 2023 were ridiculous. The man had a record in College Football that rivaled the all time greats of past and present. Except, he was struggling with the rivalry, and he hadn't won a national championship. You know, they say that when you win, you're not as good as everyone says you are....and when you lose, you're not as bad as everyone says you are. But I have to admit, after the 4th straight loss to Michigan in 2024, I was in the same head space that I was in when I said it was time to move on from John Cooper, another highly successful Ohio State coach who couldn't beat Michigan. I like Day, I told myself. And he's young, and he will go on to have a great career, a career so great that we'll probably regret cutting him loose, I continued. But he doesn't get the rivalry, and if he can't make it happen with this team, he never will. My mind was made up.
I'm here today, with my hat in my hand.
The post title is taking a cue from a Pearl Jam song here, but this isn't about them. I like the title of the song for this post and I'll get to why before the end of this post I promise. But first I have to go back to high school.
My school had a yearbook tradition of allowing seniors to have a space to place a quote of their choosing to go with their senior picture. A few were pretty good I suppose....more were tropey. I remember wracking my brain to come up with something that wasn't getting used that year or in a previous yearbook that I'd seen. Then I remembered something I saw hanging on a bulletin board in a junior high gym teachers office that for whatever reason stuck with me. This isn't going to be a story about some mentor from those days that I wanted to remember. I can't even name the two or three guys that taught those classes by name, but I remember they were jerks that almost always seemed angry with us and I didn't like being around them. But I digress....the quote:"A man can fail many times, but he is only a failure when he gives up."
See, tropey. But I still thought, ya know for as much as I can't stand these teachers, maybe somewhere underneath it all, there is a human being who can give us good advice instead of just yell at us???? Maybe. Anywhooo, I like the quote, and as corny as it is, I still think about it when I'm having a rough go, and I've used it with my kids when we get into the life lesson portion of parenting. So cheesy quotes now covered, onto my graduating classmates. Was there anyone who was not going to quote Ferris Bueller, or Jon Bon Jovi, or Dr. Seuss that could provide a real nugget that would last?
One stood out for a couple of reasons. One reason was that it was cryptic in a way that others weren't, and it was also was very contrarian to the kind of things adults were lecturing me about my entire childhood.
"Rockne wanted nothing but bad losers. Good losers get into the habit of losing."
New Englanders don't have much to cheer for in the world of college football, so I didn't follow the sport closely. So the first time I read that quote was the first time I'd heard of Notre Dame Hall of Fame Coach Knute Rockne. My classmate was paraphrasing, and touching on what Rockne was driving at when he said "show me a good and gracious loser and I'll show you a failure."
Oh if I had a nickel for every time I lost my temper when playing a game growing up, only to be admonished about poor sportsmanship. Were they wrong? No, probably not. But the way I interpreted that advice probably was wrong. I thought it meant that horrible, awful, make you scream, want to break something energy that I felt should be suppressed.......then buried somewhere deep enough that I could deny its existence. That is actually a horrible and very unhealthy thing to do. The right thing to do is put that energy into something positive. Identify where this energy is coming from, and challenge myself to do the things I need to do to not feel that way again. The options are:
- Don't play
- Get better at it
And this brings me to the afternoon of November 30, 2024. Failure. That's how Buckeye Nation defines it when you lose to Michigan. Buckeye fans are so rabid, that a pre-season poll from the Columbus Dispatch published on August 23, 2024 asked Buckeye fans if they would rather win a national championship or beat Michigan. A slight majority said beating Michigan mattered more. That is probably due to any combination of the following factors:
- Ohio State fans are much much more passionate than they are rational, and it isn't even close.
- Throughout the history of the rivalry, these two teams have played 120 times and in my lifetime, the path to a national championship always went through this rivalry......losing this game almost always means no shot at a national championship*
- Michigan holds a 62-51-6 record in this series. Buckeye fans really really don't like that.
- Ohio State, when this poll was taken, had lost 3 in a row to Michigan. Now think about that in terms of the record in the third bullet above. With Michigan holding an 11 game advantage, that is a 6 game net swing in the wrong direction. Had OSU won those games, the lifetime record would be 59-54-6. A five game difference looks a lot closer to the promised land than an 11 game deficit
A bad loser never looks good to people who aren't invested in the game. But I loved it. As much as I hated that the Buckeyes lost this game, something about this moment felt like an unquenchable burning desire for redemption. Would the Buckeyes respond to this by choosing option 2? I soooooo wanted to believe that's what this meant. But I'd have to wait and see. In the meantime, that irrational passionate fan base handled the situation by terrorizing head coach Ryan Day and his family, as mature grown ups do. And this is where I get to the part about this year's squad being a team that we don't deserve.
I didn't know it until a day or so after the game, but something funny happened during the post game brawl in the video above.
One of the lesser discussed things that occurred with the 2024 Ohio State Football team was a faith movement, led by Gee Scott Jr and Treveyon Henderson. I don't know much about what was said or done within their tight circle of players, but they encouraged their teammates to go to church with them and discover how faith can change their lives. We didn't hear much about how it affected their lives until Treveyon Henderson spoke out publicly specifically about the Michigan loss. What he said was:
"I personally don't see - in a rivalry game - like I personally don't see the team up north as an enemy. The true enemy is the devil. That is the enemy. And I truly believe what that enemy wants is for us to look at Michigan as enemies, for us to give in to that hate and hate each other."
This got mixed reviews from the fan base. Some thought this was "soft" and that anybody who would talk this way didn't 'get' the rivalry. Yeah, ok.
So now, a team with a temperament running the full gamut of emotional intelligence from temper tantrum to prayer circle when facing adversity had to decide to stop caring, OR get better. Rumors circulated of a players only meeting with head coach Ryan Day where difficult things were said. Some thought this meant that coach Day lost control of the locker room. Then, somehow, the code for season ticket holders, students and their families to buy tickets to the first playoff game against Tennessee in Columbus leaked, and Tennessee fans began bragging online that they would take over Ohio Stadium and make it like a home game. Tennessee players had a new nickname for the Horseshoe, calling it "Neyland North" after their home stadium in Knoxville. To their credit, the optics of the stadium showed a much larger visitor presence then we Buckeye fans are used to seeing in the 'Shoe. They also flexed that they weren't afraid to play in the cold and that Ohio State would have no advantage when it came to weather.
Buckeye players could have been seen on a milk carton under a big "MISSING" caption during this time. They had no response to any of this chirping. We would come to learn, they were too busy working to have time for that. But I didn't know what to expect. I told people "I have no predictions or expectations." But I hoped beyond hope that what I saw after that Michigan loss was the beginning of something special.
And this was the result:
Color me impressed! On to the Rose Bowl to face the No. 1 undefeated Oregon Ducks on New Years Day. Same quote, but with a new addendum at the end. "I have no predictions or expectations." long pause......"but if the team that destroyed Tennessee shows up, we'll have no problem beating Oregon."
And this was the result:
On to Texas. "No predictions.......no expectations......but if the team shows up that did that......"
You get the drift.
But something else was happening to the narrative around Ohio State, the team that sports media love to kick around for being not quite good enough. Something else was happening to the narrative around Ryan Day, the guy who has come within an inch of 2 orevious national championships in his first gig as a head coach, which is unheard of. But does he get any respect? It’s always “Ryan Day can’t win the big games….” Or “born on third base….”
Cowherd has a unique ability to be very convincing, even when he’s wrong. But I believed that he and many others were starting to believe in the Buckeyes, and they were liking what they saw.
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/156MWDo4vD/?mibextid=wwXIfr
For all the narrative shifting, Texas wasn't going away easily. But I hope that you caught the name Treveyon Henderson being yelled a few times during those clips while he did absolutely amazing things. One thing missing from those clips is Jack Sawyer terrorizing opposing quarterbacks and preventing them from doing anything on offense for most of both of those games. The highlight reels like offense and don't always get excited about defense. But this time, they'd have to notice. Texas wasn't going to roll over and go away. So this is what happened:
The Jack Sawyer redemption tour was complete after that. I was starting to get the vibes I had in 2002 and 2014 where this feels like destiny. But I didn't dare say that. The work wasn't finished. "No predictions. No expectations. But if they keep playing like this ......."
Then Jack wrote this, and it no longer mattered to me what the outcome would be. Of course I wanted the win. But I no longer wanted it for me. I wanted it for this team. And all that mattered to me was that they knew they put everything they had into it, win or lose.
He poured his heart out into the article. He was a Buckeye fan before he could walk. His dream of playing for this team came true, but along the way, this crew became his family. And his coach. He took it personally that his coach, whom he'd grown to love like a father was taking so much heat for losing 4 straight to Michigan. For all the glory of his big moment against Texas, he was having none of it. The work wasn't done.
So, then this:
Pay special attention to what happens at the 2:58 mark. It doesn't score points. It's 3rd and 11 in a one possession game, and this play is the last chance to get 11 yards or give the ball back to ND. This play essentially solidifies a national championship for Ohio State. And there is a back story to it.
The way this team, this coaching staff, these players were treated, I don't think one person would blame them if they said "screw this, screw Buckeye Nation" and quit, either by quiet quitting during the next game against Tennessee, or by deciding to forgo the playoffs altogether and prepare for the NFL draft. Though people wouldn't necessarily respect that, they wouldn't be all that surprised either.
Instead, they decided to do whatever it took to win. Take this little example of the difference between talent and culture. The team that lost to Michigan was uber talented. The team that won a national championship had a culture that was selfless and determined. In this clip, you see a star senior, taking a leadership role in finding a way to win. And it didn't involve him. He's pointing out to his teamates, that a fellow player, a freshman is getting open against the Notre Dame defense.
Emeka Egbuka spoke Will Howard’s 56-yard pass to Jeremiah Smith on 3rd-and-11 (“3rd-and-Jeremiah”) into existence while watching film earlier in the game.
— Josh Poloha (@JorshP) January 28, 2025
“We need to run a go-ball on 29. … Look at the inside leverage he has when (Carnell Tate’s) attacking him.” pic.twitter.com/EMEN82BRxR
That is a player taking ownership of the outcome and doing whatever it takes to look at all of the details and find a way to win. He sees that Jeremiah Smith is beating No. 29 for Notre Dame on go routes and says we need to do that in this moment.
Watch that clip. Read Jack Sawyer's missive. If you've read it already, read it again.
State of Love and Trust folks.
Now winning a championship, that's inspiring sure. Every year we see a team do that. I've seen two other Ohio State teams do that. And I won't downplay the significance of that at all. But this team, this 2024 National Championship Ohio State Buckeye team, did it being bad losers while simultaneously showing us how to be better people. I'll never forget them for that. That is special in a way that I've never seen before.
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