In the first quarter of Ohio State's spring game, quarterback Cardale Jones unleashed his cannon of a right arm and threw a pass deep down the sideline intended for tight end Nick Vannett. The ball never made it to one of the Buckeyes' top pass catchers, though, as safety Tvyis Powell made a great break, stepped in front of Vannett and intercepted the pass attempt.
Powell returned the ball 38 yards down the sideline before Jones, who was wearing a black non-contact jersey, drilled him out of bounds. Powell hopped right up, however, put his arm around the 6-foot-5, 250-pound quarterback, extended it outward and pretended his hand was a camera as he snapped a fake selfie.
It was quite the funny moment, but one that shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone who knows anything about the relationship between Jones and Powell. The two are best friends and roommates, who describe their relationship as "father and son." Despite wearing that black jersey, Jones couldn't resist the urge to knock Powell off his feet after he picked off one of his passes.
"I’m looking at Nick (Vannett) the whole time and I see that he didn’t engage nobody. I’m looking at Cardale and he look at Nick and I say to myself, ‘I know he know that I know what he doing,’" Powell said following the game. "But he threw it anyway like — I guess he just, I felt disrespected when he threw it anyway. I had to show him why I’m dad and he’s son so I picked him off. That’s exactly how it went down.”
Jones and Powell are just two of the big personalities on Ohio State's roster. They're two guys who help keep the Buckeyes' locker room loose, constantly cracking jokes and playing pranks. There are others, too, of course. Vonn Bell, Darron Lee and Ezekiel Elliott are just a few that come to mind.
“You definitely need those couple people that’s silly, those silly type of guys because you can’t be serious at all times. You’ve gotta have fun. The most important thing about playing a sport is to have fun.”– Adolphus Washington
They're all key contributors on the field, but they also carry special value in the locker room.
“You definitely need those couple people that’s silly, those silly type of guys because you can’t be serious at all times. You’ve gotta have fun," senior defensive tackle Adolphus Washington said. "The most important thing about playing a sport is to have fun.”
It's not all fun and games, though, of course. While some of Ohio State's best players may be jokesters at times, they know when to turn off that switch and turn on the serious one.
But having those loose personalities around certainly helps the Buckeyes.
“It depends on what the overall team personality is. If you’ve got a team like us where guys are really comfortable with each other, guys are kind of loose then it’s cool to have guys doing those things," linebacker Joshua Perry said. "But if you put Darron Lee or Tyvis or one of those other guys in a locker room where the culture is a lot more uptight, buttoned up or don’t like to do all that then that’s tough to deal with and vice versa."
Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer says every team is different. He has to get a grasp on the different personalities in the locker room before he knows how he's going to go about coaching them.
"You need to know your team," Meyer said. "You walk into a team meeting room and it's very quiet, like last year, it's a very non-confident team. It's a team that needs some encouragement. If you walk into a team and they're slapping around, laughing, it's a very confident team, you might have to swing at them a little bit."
Guys like Powell, Jones and the others, they keep things light in the locker room. Their light-hearted, playful spirit is contagious.
But do they ever get told to tone it down?
“No, we actually need that," Washington said. "When we’re out on that field it’s concentrating and it’s hard work so when we get that time to be in the locker room with the guys, we need that.”
And whatever it is they're doing, it seems to be working just fine.
