– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
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ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN — We now know how long an eternity lasts in the town of Columbus, Ohio: 2,191 days. Finally, the long, painful, gut-wrenching wait of scarlet-and-gray over maize-and-blue on the football field in finally over. In the snowy field of the Big House, Ohio State finally put one over on its rivals and could finally have some fun at their biggest rival’s expense.
Even the mascot, Brutus the Buckeye, got in on the fun, ditching a snow angel for crossing out the “M” in “Michigan” in the end zone and drawing the script Ohio in the snow during a stoppage of play.
Though after the fun on Saturday, the seriousness of defending the national championship becomes very real for the Buckeyes. But before that, a couple of days of soak in their redemption.
Quarterback Julian Sayin threw three touchdown passes, including a 35-yarder to Jeremiah Smith on a fourth down early in the second quarter to give Ohio State the lead for good, as the Buckeyes defeated No. 15 Michigan 27-9 inside Michigan Stadium. Freshman running back No Jackson ran for a season-high 117 yards as the Buckeyes completed an undefeated regular season and will now take on No. 2 Indiana next week in Indianapolis for the Big Ten Championship. Both Ohio State and the Hoosiers are locks to be in the College Football Playoff.
At this time, many though the Ohio State head coach Ryan Day wasn’t a lock to keep his job, that after his No. 2 Buckeyes went down for a fourth consecutive time to the Wolverines, and losing while 23.5-point favorites coming into the game. The storm around Day afterward was fuel for Ohio State’s eventual run in the College Football Playoff to the National Championship, but, even with the ultimate hardware, that dark cloud of not having beaten the Wolverines since November 30, 2019, hovered over him enough to still arrive at “The Game” with an immense amount of pressure to deliver.
Ohio State finally delivered.
“Nobody wants to win this game more than me,” Day said. “To win this game, it’s just a great moment. It’s one of those moments that you want to just grab on for a while and just enjoy it.”
*Editor’s note: Above the byline is the photo gallery from Saturday afternoon’s game, with photos taken by ALOST staff photographer Aaron J. Thornton. After clicking on a photo to enlarge the picture, press the left and right arrow buttons on either side of the caption to scroll through the rest of the pictures that appear on the first page, Also, click on the numbers and/or arrow appearing immediately below the picture grid to load the next set of photos. There are XX pictures in total.
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