With a wheelbarrow full of mulch, Ohio State senior defensive tackle Tommy Schutt strolled through Buckeye Grove on Friday morning repeating the phrase "I love football" out loud almost to the tune of a made-up song.
And while the Buckeyes' projected starter on the interior of the defensive line actually does love the game he plays, he probably didn't as much on this day. That's because Schutt was part of the Scarlet team which lost last weekend's spring game and as a result had to resurface the area just south of Ohio Stadium where former Ohio State All-Americans are individually honored with their own tree.
"It's good to be out here and to take care of what we have going on because it's a great place unlike anywhere else," linebacker Joshua Perry said. "We've had a ton of All-Americans and it's kind of bad because you lose the spring game, and you don't want to do that, but to be out here and to take care of Ohio State is a really good thing."
Perry, Ohio State's senior linebacker and a shoo-in to be a captain next season, was the unanimous MVP among media members in attendance of Friday's landscaping duties. When asked how many wheelbarrow runs he made, Perry responded with a sarcastic, "400!"
"My dad told me that if you want to get a job done right and if you want to get it done efficiently you've kind of gotta do it yourself," Perry said. "We've got some guys who took ownership of it out here and of course we had a few guys who were slacking around with a rake in hand, but it is what it is. Honestly, I think that we've got a good group of guys and we really did get it done maybe not as fast as we want it to, it might not of been the greatest thing but the experience is what matters."
Nobody was exempt from the work, though. Even if they showed up late.
Even All-Americans have to use a wheelbarrow: pic.twitter.com/AzybIE56xS
— Tim Shoemaker (@TimShoemaker) April 24, 2015
Bosa will have his own tree planted in Buckeye Grove in the near future after finishing his sophomore season as a unanimous All-American. Other guys on the Ohio State team hope to have their own tree some day.
"That's definitely the goal by everyone on our team," said running back Ezekiel Elliott, who also joked he thought he would be exempt from the mulching because of his wrist injury, but that wasn't the case. Elliott was assigned the task of shoveling even though he had just one hand. "We want to play well in The Shoe and then eventually try and get a tree in Buckeye Grove so it's humbling to come out here and see all the Buckeye great names under the trees and just to know that some of your teammates are going to have one."
