It was high noon when the Ohio State players shuffled into the football team meeting room, as they had countless times before
This time, however, was different.
The date was Dec. 2, 2024, 48 hours after one of the worst failures in program history — a 13-10 loss to Michigan, the fourth straight to their biggest rival.
The seniors had four years to earn the coveted gold pants.
Four times they tried.
Four times they failed.
There were no chances left.
The season was over.
Or was it?
The team was the No. 8 seed in the first-ever 12-team College Football Playoff, but its prospects for advancement were anything but bright if the Michigan game was any indication.
The new playoff system was a gift that could be maximized — or squandered — and players like Seth McLaughlin knew it.
“We can still win it with this new format, and we [are] still one of the best teams in the country,” McLaughlin said.
The meeting would decide the Buckeyes’ fate: They could either come together to make a run for the national championship, or they could limp into another painful offseason.
It was a meeting that would seal the team’s place in Buckeye history.
Six weeks later, the 2024 Ohio State team stood atop college football as the undisputed champion of a historic playoff. It ran a gauntlet of four top 10 teams, won every game by double digits and silenced every doubter.
Ohio against the world, indeed.
“It was a very uplifting meeting for everybody to regain the confidence, and just having faith in one another to keep going and keep working toward something,” McLaughlin said. “I don’t think we’d be here today if it wasn’t for the men who stepped up in that room and talked.”
In the Buckeye football-themed room, which seats 100-plus people, the words “TOUGH LOVE” are painted between two white projector screens that take up most of the wall.
Those words came to life that Monday.
“[It’s] the only way you get to win championships,” cornerback Jermaine Matthews said. “It’s a lot of tough love, a lot of tough conversations you’ve got to have with each other.”
The meeting was primarily for players, but head coach Ryan Day was also there. Athletes’ murmuring drew quiet when their coach stood to speak.
Day took the brunt of public scorn for the Michigan loss. There were calls for him to be fired. There were calls for him to die. There were threats made against him and his family. But in that room, all he had was love for the players who followed him into battle.
He told the team this was the time for everyone to speak.
About their feelings.
About their disappointments.
About their fears.
About their anger.
About their hopes. And their dreams.
“He told us to ask him questions that are hard to answer, even though it might not be what I want to hear,” wide receiver Brandon Inniss said. “We’ve got to get through this as a team.”
When he was done talking, Day sat down in a chair in the corner of the meeting room as the floor opened up for players to speak, his back against the wall.
The first player to stand was team captain Jack Sawyer, whose message was simple.
“That’s a hard game to get over, but now that it’s over, we’ve got to move on,” Sawyer said.
“I still think we have the team to win the national championship.”
Sawyer then asked if the team still believed in each other. Inniss said the response was underwhelming.
“Everybody kind of said ‘Yes,’ but it wasn’t huge; you didn’t believe it if you heard it,” Inniss said.
The players sat and conversed with their respective position groups. When it was the wide receivers’ turn to speak, Inniss stood and looked at Day. He asked for answers about how the offensive plays of the Michigan game were called, especially since so many failed.
“I asked him, during the game, ‘Why did we make certain calls?’ And he gave me an explanation,” Inniss said. “He explained why it went down and his thought process behind that.”
Day’s candor made a mark on the players, with senior defensive tackle Ty Hamilton calling his coach “prideless.”
Emotions ran high. Matthews and senior offensive lineman Donovan Jackson were angry. They were frustrated. They cried.
“Harsh things were said about each unit, what they need to get better on,” defensive back Jordan Hancock said. “We all took the criticism, we all loved each other. It was positivity, it was tears, it was every emotion you could imagine in one meeting.”
Minutes went by. Then an hour.
Day challenged the team that had crumbled against Michigan to move on and face the challenge before it: a playoff run that would require players to crisscross the country, play elite opponents for four more weeks and hopefully be crowned the ultimate champions.
Before the meeting ended, Day left his players alone in the room. His words hung heavy like a thick fog, clinging to every surface.
What formed among that weight was resolve.
This team would go on. This team would fight. This team believed that in a battle between Ohio State and the world, the Buckeyes would be victorious.
Sawyer stood up one last time. Again, he asked his teammates, “Do you guys still believe?”
This time, the response left no doubt.
“The consensus agreement at the end of it [was] we can still win this thing,” Matthews said. “We’ve got four to go.”
Before leaving the room, the players came together — as they had all season — for a group prayer. Their heads bowed, their arms linked, their spirits lifted.
The team that left the room bore little resemblance to the one that entered.
Players tempted by the transfer portal reaffirmed their full commitment to the program. Players who did enter the portal vowed to be Buckeyes until the journey was complete and the job was finished. Players who would start and end their careers wearing scarlet and gray forged a bond that could never be broken.
“After we closed the doors behind us, we were just like, ‘That’s in the past, we’re moving forward,” tight end Will Kacmaek said. “There’s only one way up.”
That upward journey carried the Buckeyes to a 42-17 triumph over Tennessee in the first round.
It carried them to a 41-21 Rose Bowl thumping of Oregon.
It carried them to a 28-14 wrangling of Texas in the Cotton Bowl, capped off by Sawyer’s legendary scoop-and-score with just over two minutes left in the fourth quarter.
In the post-Cotton Bowl press conference, Day sat with quarterback Will Howard and Sawyer. They were now one step away from their end goal of a national championship.
Day wore a Cotton Bowl champions hat low on his forehead, hunching over a microphone. His voice was calm yet filled with emotion.
They had come so far.
They had silenced some doubters.
But they still had more to do.
“The story of this team is yet to be told,” Day said. “No great accomplishments are ever achieved without going through adversity. That’s just the truth. At the end, we want to be able to tell the story of this team.”
A week later, Ohio State lifted the national championship trophy in Atlanta, after defeating a tough Notre Dame team 34-23 to cement its legacy of excellence.
The same players who confronted the reality of the humiliating Michigan loss now celebrated a victory without equal. Once again, they cried together — but this time, tears of joy.
They cried, and they remembered.
“That was the reason why we won: that meeting right there,” Innis said. “Everybody’s whole mindset changed.”
This was a team that had overcome agonizing public pain. This was a team that had come together with a belief few others shared. This was a team that had found a way to win and lift an entire university, city, state and sport to championship heights.
Now, their story could be told.
The Ohio State football team lifted the National Championship Trophy as they celebrated a 34-23 victory over Notre Dame in the National Championship game Jan. 20.
All photos by Sandra Fu | Photo Editor
