COLUMBUS, Ohio — Jack Sawyer grew up wanting to be an Ohio State football player hoping to one day be part of arguably the greatest rivalry in sports.
He can still remember the moment he realized the magnitude of The Game when he and his friends watched Curtis Samuel score a game-winning touchdown in double overtime to beat Michigan 30-27 in 2016. He might not have been in the stadium that day but he could feel the environment even through through the television.
“I think that was really the moment I was like, ‘Man, I really want to play in this game,’” Sawyer said. “It’s really cool looking back on it now. Watching it with my buddies going crazy when we scored having no idea that one day I’d be playing in this game.”
That’s the version of The Game that he signed up for when he became Ryan Day’s first commitment as the Buckeyes’ head coach. The version where we spend the whole week hyping up a top-five matchup with everything on the line from bragging rights to a spot in the Big Ten Championship Game and College Football Playoff. Then OSU goes out and wins a memorable game putting the Wolverines back in their place in the process.
But that version of this rivalry isn’t part of his reality.
The games have been significant, the world’s been watching and all of those things have been out there to attain. He’s just been on the losing side of it. And he’s been living that reality for a while.
“I haven’t won a rivalry game in football since the seventh grade,” Sawyer said.
Sawyer grew up in Pickerington, a suburb of Columbus, Ohio, about 20 minutes from Ohio State’s campus. The kids out there either go to Pickerington North or Pickerington Central High School and both have produced plenty of Ohio State caliber talent. That includes the five currently on the roster with Sawyer, Ty Hamilton, Sonny Styles, Lorenzo Styles Jr. and freshman Sam Williams-Dixon.
Sawyer, Hamilton and the Styles brothers all grew up together, but the latter three all went to Central while Sawyer went to North where they went 4-0 against their childhood friend.
“I never beat Central in high school,” Sawyer said. Ty and Zo like to rub that in a lot. Then you get here and you fall short three years in a row. Just excited for the opportunity to go out the right way this weekend.”
That rivalry sucks, but it’s also on a much smaller level concentrated to one community. This rivalry is so big that it can tear apart families. This rivalry has impacted Sawyer’s entire college career to the point that he and his teammate have constantly had to go out of their way to defend their head coach.
“A big part for me was to come back for Coach Day,” Sawyer said. “No one deserves this game more than he does. To see what him and his family have gone through the last three years falling short to them, it made my decision even clearer to come back.
” He’s the guy that gave me an opportunity to play here so I thought that I owed it to him to come back and get this win. That’s what we plan to do Saturday.”
Sawyer’s loyalty to Day goes back almost as long as his losing streak in rivalry games. But that can’t be his only motivation for Saturday.
He needs this win almost as much as Day does. He’s the foundational piece of an uber-talented 2021 recruiting class that’s still yet to win this game. He’s the one we all deemed as the face of the program’s future. He’s the homegrown captain who has constantly been the model for what it means to be a highly-rated prospect in the Buckeyes’ backyard.
The Day era started with Sawyer, as did any optimistic outlook on what that meant. And he’s had to live with the disappointment of not bringing those hopes and expectations to life. Because he’s an Ohioan, so he knows what other Ohioians are feeling.
“I wouldn’t necessarily say it weighs on me as a person but I’d be lying if I said I don’t think about it every day,” Sawyer said. “It’s the competitor in me.”
This game is important to plenty of people and Sawyer is high on that list. Wearing the burden of three straight losses has taken a heavy toll.
This isn’t the version of the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry he signed up for. He thought he was getting the version he used to watch as a kid. But it’s the version he’s had to deal with. Now he gets to make sure it ends on a high note.
It’s his last game in Columbus and a last chance to make a name for himself in The Game.
“Going through those trials and tribulations the last three years has really shaped this team and the coaching staff as well,” Sawyer said. “I think you see it in the way we’re playing. The way we’re approaching stuff now. It’s been tough. It. Hasn’t been easy. Far from easy. But that’s the way we like it around here.
“Going through those tough times with each other has (prepared) us for this moment we’ve got this year. The chips have all aligned in the right spots and we’re excited to go out there and compete this Saturday.”