We normally see this atmosphere with professional sports teams. That is a fan base that is looking for hope.
The Cleveland Browns live on fans who bank on hope every season. Making predictions on Cleveland’s football team before the season is truly futile. Winless seasons, playoff-bound wishes and dreams of making the Super Bowl drive have brought a culture of disappointment dating back to 1964.
This time it was The Ohio State University.
Perhaps it is the pressure of watching a college football team with a reported payroll of $20 million. Or knowing the transfer portal has made every player a free agent. Better yet, it is the thick dark cloud of knowing that an unranked Michigan team came to your house and beat you up for the fourth time in a row.
In the temple of football gods known as Ohio Stadium, a venue that packs more than 100,000 fans on any random fall – winter now too – day, Dec. 21 was different. The normal sea of scarlet and gray was splattered with a light orange throughout its historic pillars. It was odd.
While the television guesstimate was said to be nearly 40,000 Tennessee fans, I have seen other reports of more than 20,000 making the drive up north. Nonetheless, it was a bizarre site. It’s normally Ohio State that takes over cities when the Buckeyes come to town.
One of the most impressive sites I have witnessed was the 2003 OSU takeover in Tempe, Ariz. on the night the Buckeyes won the national championship over the University of Miami. It was Jan. 3, 2003. There were 77,502 fans packed into Sun Devil Stadium. It felt and looked like a gathering of 77,000 Buckeye fans.
On Dec. 21, the pregame atmosphere caused butterflies. Coming off the Michigan loss, a fan base was looking for one last reason to let head coach Ryan Day become the former head coach. There were the taunts of making “The Shoe” into “Neyland North,” the name of Tennessee’s stadium. There was an apathetic crowd that normally fills St. John Arena, which was said to be only half-filled, to get hyped up before the game to listen to the marching band. There were the worries and the dreams of a national championship to set the stage for a historic night in Columbus. And then there was the first College Football Playoff game to be played on the banks of the Olentangy River.
Days of debating the importance of beating Michigan over winning a national championship filled the airwaves and these pages for the last month. Finally, the talk was over. Ohio State had a chance to make the loss to Michigan a sidebar rather than the main story. The editing started at 8:10 p.m.
Something about the first two drives for Ohio State against Tennessee made you think everything would be alright. Ohio State marched down the field on the first drive in five plays, 75 yards and a 37-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Will Howard to one of the most trusted freshmen in Ohio State history landed in the arms of Jeremiah Smith. The drive was helped out by a face mask penalty. OSU dodged the bullet of “What happens if Tennessee jumps out to an early lead” paranoia?
It was media-built anxiety that OSU might have been better off with a road game because the crowd – full of OSU fans who were still mad about the Michigan loss – might turn on them. It also might have been the fuel the Buckeyes needed to get off to a good start.
Then came the OSU defense. Three plays, seven yards for the Volunteers. The first of seven punts on the night for Tennessee. Ohio State then rolled off a five-play, 65-yard touchdown drive ending with Quinshon Judkins five-yard touchdown run. And the Buckeyes were up 14-0. Once again, the defense rose to the occasion, holding the Tennessee offense to just three plays. The next time it was a seven-play drive capped off by TreVeyon Henderson’s 29-yard touchdown gallop to give OSU a 21-0 lead.
It was football perfection. The Vols cut the halftime lead to 21-10, but in the end, OSU won, 42-17.
This is an OSU football team that has now beaten three top 10 teams this season. It was two points away from making that four top 10 wins. It just missed against Oregon earlier in the season in a one-point loss. It will get another chance in the glorious sunset of the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day.
It feels like the Buckeyes are on the “redemption tour.” Step one is in the books. No other Ohio State team has had the chance to take a ride like this. If OSU can knock off undefeated Oregon in the Rose Bowl, it will be another reminder that college football has changed. The importance of the Ohio State-Michigan game has changed.
Hope has a new definition. Hope returns on Jan. 1 in Pasadena, Calif.
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