Defensive tackles are always doing dirty work that goes unnoticed by much of the viewing public.
Ty Hamilton and Tyleik Williams, defensive tackles for Ohio State’s 2024 national championship squad, are no exception. Yes, the duo entered last season as returning starters with plenty of hype, but they didn’t have the gaudy statistical outputs of Cody Simon, JT Tuimoloau, Jack Sawyer or Caleb Downs in the College Football Playoff or regular season.
But great defense starts with great defensive tackle play and the combo dubbed “TNT” last offseason blew up offensive lines to stop opposing running games and collapse pockets throughout the Buckeyes’ CFP title run.
“Being from Ohio and being able to go to Ohio State and being able to play at Ohio State is an amazing feeling,” Hamilton said after the Buckeyes won the national title. “To be able to bring home a national championship that hasn't been done in a decade – it’s an amazing feeling to be part of (that).”
greatest run in college football history. pic.twitter.com/XncbB36FYU
— Eleven Warriors (@11W) February 11, 2025
Hamilton finished the CFP with 11 tackles, two tackles for loss and one sack across four games while Williams pitched in 14 tackles, 2.5 TFLs and a pass breakup. While those numbers are good but not mind-boggling, the duo is primarily responsible for one of Ohio State’s most ridiculous team statistics of its playoff run.
Tennessee, Oregon, Texas and Notre Dame all had rushing offenses ranging from good to elite. The quartet combined for 240 rushing yards on 122 carries against the Buckeyes, a staggeringly low 48 yards per game and less than two yards per carry. The Ducks had the bleakest effort, finishing with -23 rushing yards in the Rose Bowl.
“We always want to be the toughest-playing team in America,” Williams said at Ohio State’s media day before the CFP title game. “You want to stop the run. You want to stop the pass, limit explosive plays. All the things that every defense in the nation lives up to, we've been showing that on the field in the past couple games. We just have a mentality, just go eat, go hunt.”
Hamilton and Williams both enter the 2025 NFL draft with long, distinguished Buckeye careers to their credit. Hamilton started 29 career games while Williams started 26.
Nose guard is one of the most thankless positions in the sport. Usually colliding with multiple bodies a play, Hamilton’s strength and grit constantly had him eating blocks for linebackers and freeing up teammates for tackles and sacks, though he closed his Ohio State tenure with 116 tackles and eight sacks of his own. The younger brother of late-blooming Buckeye star nose DaVon Hamilton, Ty will remain in his coaches’ minds as one of the 2024 squad’s unsung heroes.
“You talk about one of the most unselfish, unsung heroes on this team, all he does is work,” Day said the morning after the national championship. “He comes in and works every single day. That's Ty Hamilton.”
“Ty don't get talked about as much because he's a quiet giant,” Williams said. “But he's holding it down in the middle. It's a front four, it's not a front three. He's there too. He just doesn't get as much publicity as everybody else, but he's definitely a dog.”
Go time @OhioStateFB pic.twitter.com/STZL1Yh77y
— Ty Hamilton (@tyhamilton__) February 19, 2025
Williams gained second-team All-Big Ten honors in 2023 and third-team All-Big Ten recognition in 2024, concluding his career with 136 tackles, 28 TFLs, 11.5 sacks and 10 PBUs. Like Hamilton, those stats don’t fully capture his contributions to Ohio State. He proved key to stymieing Oregon and Notre Dame’s run games, combining for seven tackles and two TFLs in those contests.
“These guys are brothers for life,” Hamilton said. “You don't get too many times that you get to be with a team that really cares for each other. It's not just about stats and stuff like that. It's not always about winning. It's guys that really will lay their life down for each other.”
There’s one more area where Hamilton, Williams and then-sophomore defensive tackle Kayden McDonald did vital work: the goal line.
Ohio State’s pile of heroic goal-line stands by its defense has been documented time after time on Eleven Warriors. And one thing was clear in all of them, pounding the ball up the middle when a yard or two was needed against the Buckeyes’ defense was no easy task.
Nebraska, Penn State and Texas all tried and failed in critical situations. The Longhorns were so discouraged from doing so that, after a 1st-and-goal run up the middle at the 1-yard line went for no gain, they tried tossing it outside and lost 7 yards. The Scoop-and-Sawyer unfurled two downs later.
Sawyer’s play will live forever as a where-were-you moment for Ohio State fans, but it was all set up by the Buckeyes’ interior defensive line and the fear they struck into Texas head coach and offensive play caller Steve Sarkisian.
“I think it just comes down to family,” Hamilton said of the Buckeyes’ goal-line defense after the Texas game. “Every time we step on the field, we've got 11 guys playing as one. Like I said, being able to go out there and play as one and play as hard as we can. We know that we look to the guy next to us and they're playing as hard as we are.”
TNT may not have exploded on the national scene, but they were dynamite for Ohio State’s 2024 national championship team.
“To be able to go out there on the biggest stage, to be able to go out there and play our best football, man, it just shows how great this team is and how great it has been,” Hamilton said. “Guys go out there and work every single day, man. Not everybody gets the credit, but as a team, we all go out there and fight.”
