Maurice Clarett is biased.
He called himself that. Not me.
During Ohio State’s national championship media day, Eleven Warriors learned Clarett still considers his forced fumble on Sean Taylor in the 2003 BCS National Championship Game more impactful than Jack Sawyer’s scoop-and-score in the 2025 Cotton Bowl.
“I’m biased,” Clarett joked. “It was the championship game.”
JACK SAWYER SCOOP AND SCORE pic.twitter.com/hkcJ1Mxip1
— Eleven Warriors (@11W) January 11, 2025
#ChampionshipMoments 2002
— Pick Six Previews (@PickSixPreviews) January 8, 2018
OHIO STATE 31 | MIAMI 24
Maurice Clarett steals the ball back from Sean Taylor after the INT pic.twitter.com/1GaoybxOE9
On a serious note, Clarett is one of the few people who could relate to what Sawyer has experienced since his epic moment in Dallas. The two of them had a moment to reflect on that fact this week.
“I was laughing with Jack. I was telling Jack, ‘You’re a hometown kid.’ I said, ‘Watching you, as a 41-year-old adult, do that, I now understand the impact that the play I had against Sean Taylor had on people,’” Clarett said. “I then told Jack, ‘You’ll talk about that until you’re 41.’ He was like, ‘You think so?’ I said, ‘Jack, trust me. You’ll talk about that for a long time.’ It was good to see.”
“I was laughing with Jack. I was telling Jack, ‘You’re a hometown kid.’ I said, ‘Watching you, as a 41-year-old adult, do that, I now understand the impact that the play I had against Sean Taylor had on people.’” – Maurice Clarett on Jack Sawyer's scoop-and-score in the Cotton Bowl
Clarett has been around the Ohio State football team all season. While he doesn’t hold an official role with the program, the former Ohio State running back has come to practices and games since he developed a relationship with Ryan Day this past offseason.
“It’s been phenomenal working with Ryan – or Ryan, Coach Day, I don’t know how he prefers me to call him,” Clarett said with a laugh. “But it’s been phenomenal, man. A friendship has developed and grown. I’ve been very fortunate to have personal conversations with him. Every Tuesday, when I come to practice, we have dinner together after practice. It’s been phenomenal to watch him and see where our relationship started and has grown.”
Clarett said Day impresses him as a coach and as a person. He attributes some, if not most, of Ohio State’s success this season to the love and respect Day’s players have for him. Chief among them is Sawyer, who wrote about his relationship with the head coach in The Players’ Tribune this week.
“His impact on the players, his leadership on the players, the connectivity he’s had with the guys and where I’ve seen it grow, the amount of fight and pride that they have toward him, it’s been a cool deal, man,” Clarett said. “I experienced Coach (Jim) Tressel, and I used to see how we felt toward Coach Tressel, but I’ve seen these kids receive and watch him and the admiration and the reverence they have for him grow. It’s exemplified on the field.”
Clarett said it needs to be exemplified one more time for the 2024 Buckeyes to be remembered forever.
“I just need these guys to finish the deal right here,” Clarett said. “We will lift Coach Day up and the rest of the coaching staff into a different realm of champions, and we will continue to build the program.”
