Sawyer expects and hopes for a war vs Wolverines
COVER PHOTO: Jack Sawyer points to the sky after getting one of his two QB sacks against Indiana's Kurtis Rourke during their game in Ohio Stadium on Nov. 23, 2024. Sawyer finished with four tackles including 1.5 sacks to help the Buckeyes beat the undefeated, No. 5 Hoosiers, 38-15. Picture by Sam Fahmi/Columbus Wired.
Always charismatic, perpetually enigmatic, Ohio State’s Jack Sawyer knows he has only one shot left to do something he hasn’t done since seventh grade, and that’s beat a heated rival. Come Saturday, that one shot is to finally beat Michigan and earn his first pair of gold pants.
“We know they’re going to give us a good shot, you know? They’re a good football team and there’s no mistaking that,” Sawyer said this week. “We know we’re going to have to come in there and play our balls off and we expect a war. That’s what we came here to do and that’s what we hope it is.”
Growing up in central Ohio, the fourth-year senior defensive end out of Pickerington (Ohio) North High School had seen his fair share of Ohio State-Michigan games and knows just as well as anybody on the team what The Game is all about.
It’s about tradition. It’s about hatred. It’s about lining up against a school you seethe and want nothing less than to send them home with their tails between their legs.
Teammate Emeka Egbuka is one teammate who’s been right there alongside Sawyer during the tribulations of not being able to win a gold pair of pants and said it would mean a lot getting his first pair.
“It would cap off my Ohio State career definitely the right way,” Egbuka said. “You come to Ohio State to beat The Team Up North and win a pair of gold pants. Just (to be able) to hand the gold pants to my mother is … a memory I’m looking forward to.”
Egbuka and Sawyer came to OSU in the same 2021 recruiting class and the fourth-year wide receiver from Steilacoom, Wash. has sat through thick and thin with Sawyer and fellow seniors alike and has no doubt that they’re all ready for a war.
“Sharing the field with people I’ve shared the same experiences … everybody knows what’s at stake and what’s on the line so I have no doubt in my mind that Jack Sawyer is going to go out there and play his heart out,” Egbuka said this week.
Sawyer has also played in his fair share of rivalry games but lamented that it’s been a long time since he’s been a part of a team that’s been able to knock off an opponent for supreme bragging rights and it’s been tough to be on the losing end to the Wolverines for the past three years.
“I haven’t won a rivalry game in football since seventh grade against (Pickerington) Ridgeview (Junior High), never beat them. Never beat (Pickerington) Central in high school (either).”
Sawyer said he’s taken in stride the good-natured ribbing from teammates and Pickerington natives Ty Hamilton and the Styles brothers - Lorenzo, Jr. and Sonny, who all played for Central - and he hasn’t let the letdown of losing to Michigan the past three years affect him personally. Although, he said the sting of losing to the Maize and Blue has still had an effect.
“I wouldn’t necessarily say it weighs on me as a person but I’d be lying if I say I don’t think about it every day. Shit, sometimes I still think about the games against Central in high school, it’s the competitor in me.”
As a true freshman in 2021, Sawyer saw limited time in The Game and didn’t log an official stat but still had to sit and watch the Wolverines pile up 297 rushing yards and all six of their touchdowns on the way to a 42-27 win in Ann Arbor, Mich. It was the first game Michigan had won in 10 years.
The following season was a little bit of a different story for Jack, as he was now more of a rotational player and could possibly impact the game from close-up rather than primarily sit from afar. Unfortunately for him and the undefeated No. 2 Buckeyes, the ending anecdote was still the same as the unbeaten No. 3 Maize and Blue once again ran roughshod over the Scarlet and Gray, totaling 252 yards and three scores on the ground. Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy aired it out for 278 yards and three more TD’s to give OSU a 45-23 loss at home. It was the most lopsided loss to the Wolverines in Columbus since a 58-6 dusting in 1946.
Much like the previous year’s Game, Sawyer once again did not get his name on the stat sheet.
Last year, Sawyer was in his third season and things were much different for the junior. No longer an occasional rotational player, he was a starter and could without a doubt make his presence felt more often than every-now-and-again as a Jack position guy.
Once again, both teams were undefeated with the Buckeyes ranked No. 2 and the Wolverines right behind them in the college football playoff rankings. And for 2023, it was wash, rinse and repeat as Michigan got the best of the Buckeyes. Albeit, it wasn't as bad as the previous two years, but they still got a 30-24 victory.
Sawyer tallied six tackles including a five-yard sack.
This time around, though, the outcome could be different.
After going undefeated and winning a third-straight Big Ten title as well as a national championship last year, Michigan has been down on their luck this year. The cheating scandal that plagued them during the last half of last year compounded with head coach Jim Harbaugh leaving them high and dry for greener pastures of the NFL has seemed to dog the Wolverines all season long. At 6-5, they’re a shell of their former selves and could be a ripe opportunity for Ohio State to pluck the Maize and Blue’s apple from the Tree of Hope.
Defensively speaking, the Buckeyes boast the best overall in the entire country, only allowing a total of 241 yards per game and are third against the run (90 yds/gm). They’ve also been pretty stout against the pass with the fourth-best passing defense in the land, allowing 151.7 yards a game and lead the Big Ten with 35 sacks.
The Wolverines are the second-worst passing B1G team in yards per game (140) and rating (114). Their 10 total interceptions thrown also tie them with two other teams for next-to-last in the conference.
For Sawyer, none of that matters.
“Every year it doesn’t matter what the record is, our record or their record, it’s going to be a war no matter what. You can just go back through history and look at that,” he said.
The last time a ranked Ohio State team lost to an unranked Michigan squad was in 1993 in Ann Arbor, 28-0, when Ohio State was 9-0-1 and fifth in the country while the Wolverines were squandering away at 6-4. The last time the same scenario played but in Columbus was all the way back in 1956 when an unranked, 6-2 Maize and Blue took down Woody Hayes' 12th-rated, 6-2 Scarlet and Gray, 19-0.
This year’s version features the Buckeyes at 10-1 overall, 7-1 in the Big Ten and second-rated in the country with a Big Ten title game appearance on the line. Michigan is unranked at 6-5 overall and 4-4 in the conference.
Kickoff is at the obligatory noon EST timeframe and will air on FOX.