Ohio State redshirt senior offensive lineman Jonah Jackson (73) holds the Big Ten Championship Trophy after the Buckeyes’ 34-21 win against Wisconsin Dec. 7 in Indianapolis. Credit: Griffin Strom | Sports Editor
Getting ready to leave the locker room at Ohio Stadium on a late-November game day, Jonah Jackson and Josh Myers found themselves in a familiar place.
Side by side.
That’s where they’d spent the duration of the game — and the entire season — on Ohio State’s offensive line as starting right guard and center, making their first year as teammates look like a rinse-repeat routine long in the making.
But that day, the Buckeyes’ double-digit win against Penn State held a special significance for Jackson, a redshirt senior graduate transfer from Rutgers.
“That’s the first time I’ve ever beat them,” Jackson turned and told Myers on their exit stroll. “Like, in my entire career.”
It won’t be the final first for Jackson, who finds himself amid preparation for the first-ever bowl game in his five-year college football career after a season of individual and team accolades he once didn’t think possible.
Of the 48 games Rutgers played in Jackson’s four years in the program, the Scarlet Knights won just 11. In conference games, Rutgers went 4-31 from 2015 to ’18.
In his three years on the field, Jackson lost to Penn State 39-0, 35-6 and 20-7, but the Nittany Lions weren’t the only Big Ten team the Pennsylvania native never got a win against until he got to Ohio State.
That list includes Michigan State, Michigan, Nebraska and Wisconsin.
“Honestly if you told me I’d be here doing this right now, I’d probably laugh at you last year,” Jackson said. “It’s just a blessing man. Have these guys, everybody around me, being in this group and being apart of this culture in such a historical program is incredible.”
Not only were Jackson’s Rutgers teams never bowl eligible, with their best season finish being 4-8 during his tenure, but in 2018, the Scarlet Knights went 1-11, with an 0-9 record in the Big Ten. It was the school’s worst finish since 2002 and just the fourth time Rutgers won one or fewer games in a season since the dawn of the 20th century.
But Jackson found individual success on the field, even if his team did not. He became a team captain in 2018 and earned honorable mention All-Big Ten honors after leading an offensive line unit that finished second in the conference, allowing 1.33 sacks per game.
It wasn’t enough for Jackson, though, who became one of five Rutgers players to transfer out of the program following the dismal season, citing a need for change both athletically and academically.
In February, he stayed in the Big Ten East with a commitment to the Buckeyes, a team he lost to by a combined score of 215-10 the past four years.
Jackson said he didn’t see “an ounce of new guy” in first-year head coach Ryan Day in the pair’s first meeting at Cap City Diner in Grandview, Ohio, and Day must not have seen much “new guy” in him either: Come August, Jackson was awarded a starting spot just months into his Buckeye career.
“That’s just a tribute to who Jonah is as a person and how he handles himself and how well he did coming in here,” Myers said. “That’s a hard thing to do, what he did, and just the way he carried himself throughout that whole process and how professional he was. We all love him so much. Just everything he’s done this whole process has been next to perfect.”
With the Buckeyes’ 13-0 record, Jackson has won more games this season than his entire four-year Rutgers career and said he’s now become accustomed to coming back to the team facility on Sunday with a good feeling –– a rare occurrence at Rutgers.
Jackson was named first team All-Big Ten following the regular season by the conference’s coaches, and Day said his progression is not only a testament to his hard work, but the talent of the program.
“Jonah Jackson comes in and competes against DaVon Hamilton. He’s blocking Chase Young every day for the last year. Guess what? He’s a first-team All-Big Ten player,” Day said. “Why? There’s a lot of reasons that come into it, but one of them is you’re going against great players every day.”
Saturday may be his first bowl appearance, but a matchup with Clemson puts the 6-foot-4 lineman back in a position with which he’s all too familiar.
Ohio State will enter as the underdog for the first time all season, but after all of his struggles at Rutgers, Jackson said the holiday gift of a College Football Playoff win would be even sweeter.
“I’m enjoying a lot, man. Christmas definitely came early,” he said. “Hopefully we get a couple more presents.”
