Skull Session: Who Tells Your Story

By Chase Brown on January 22, 2025 at 5:00 am
Will Howard
Mark J. Rebilas / Imagn Images
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Welcome to the Skull Session.

W, Ohio State Medical Center.

Have a good Tuesday.

 WHO LIVES, WHO DIES, WHO TELLS YOUR STORY. In the musical Hamilton, George Washington tells Alexander Hamilton History Has Its Eyes On You… 

When I was young and dreamed of glory, 

you have no control, 

who lives, 

who dies, 

who tells your story.

I know that we can win,

I know that greatness lies in you, 

but remember, from here on in, 

history has its eyes on you

Those lines came to mind Tuesday as I drove home to Columbus. I’m not sure what inspired that. I’m a Hamilton fan, but not a Hamilton fan, if that makes sense. Perhaps it was the Smoky Mountains — a strategic location for American frontiersmen to defeat British Loyalists in the American Revolution — that made my mind wander to Washington.

Regardless, as the lines permeated my mind, I wondered: What did Washington want to communicate to Hamilton? That humans have no control over their legacies and how they will be remembered? 

If so, that couldn’t be further from the truth. 

How do I know? 

I covered the 2024 Ohio State football team.

Following losses to Oregon and Michigan, Ohio State’s season looked like a failure. No Gold Pants. No Big Ten championship. And no one who believed the Buckeyes could beat four consecutive top-10 teams, including the Ducks, en route to a national title. Well, no one outside of the Woody Hayes Athletic Center.

To Ryan Day’s credit, the head coach did not allow his players and staff to adopt Washington’s mindset. Instead, he reminded the Buckeyes still held the pen needed to write the team’s ending. With wins over Tennessee, Oregon, Texas and Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff, that ending turned out to be one of the greatest of all time.

“I just can’t say enough about our guys and what they’ve overcome to get to this point. They now have something to show for it,” Day said Monday. “Now, the stories of these guys will be told because they’ve cemented themselves in Ohio State history as the ninth national champ and the third in the past 50 years. There have been some great, great teams in the last 50-some-odd years. Great teams, great players. But only three of them have been national champs, and these guys are one of them.”

Who controls your legacy?

Who determines how you will be remembered?

You do.

The Buckeyes proved that in 2024.

 ONE-LEGGED WILLY. Oh, Will Howard. A man after my own heart.

“I can’t believe God gave me the chance to be a Buckeye,” Will Howard said.

Sound familiar?

It should.

Those are the words of Jim Tressel from before the 2024 season.

“Be proud,” Tressel said, “because when you get old and come back and look, you’re gonna say, ‘I can’t believe God gave me the chance to be a Buckeye.’ Cause there’s nothing like it.”

On Monday, Howard joined Craig Krenzel and Cardale Jones as the three quarterbacks to lead Ohio State to a national championship since the BCS started in 1998, completing 17 of 21 passes for 231 yards and two touchdowns while running the ball 16 times for 57 yards. (That trio is interesting to me. How did Krenzel, Jones and Howard win titles but not Troy Smith, Braxton Miller, Dwayne Haskins, Justin Fields or C.J. Stroud? That’s wild.)

When asked Monday if he knew Howard could lead Ohio State to a title before he committed to the Buckeyes in January 2023, Day smiled.

“When I first met Will, I saw something in him,” Day said. “I saw him play on film at Kansas State and win championships and win big games and be able to make an impact with his feet but also throw with accuracy and anticipate throws. Those are things that are hard to find. Then you see the guy, you meet him, and his football IQ and maturity is what kind of captured me.”

Ten hours later, Day shared more than just his first impression of Howard.

“When Will’s feet are right, he’s as good as anybody I’ve been around. His accuracy, his ability to see (the field), the way he commands the team, the work he puts in,” Day said. “The thing that nobody is probably going to understand is how much credit he deserves for how much he can take on. I don’t think there was — to say 90 percent of the calls that went in the other day had two or three plays into it, he’s calling a play or two in the huddle and then checking the play at the line of scrimmage. That’s NFL material right there. That’s special. Whichever organization decides to draft Will is going to get, like, a pro on day one walking through the door.”

 ACTION JACKSON. You could name several MVP candidates for Ohio State this season: Howard, Jeremiah Smith, Jack Sawyer and Caleb Downs are the ones who come to mind first for me. But you know who should come to mind first? Donovan Jackson.

When a reporter asked Day to share some “under-the-radar” stories of Ohio State players and coaches he wants to be told now that the Buckeyes are national champions, Jackson was the first person he mentioned.

“Donovan Jackson, I could talk about him for 45 minutes,” Day said. “What he did this past year and the unselfishness and the play — he went from guard to tackle and became one of the best tackles in the country.”

That’s facts.

Jackson moved to left tackle before Ohio State’s win over Penn State. That weekend, future top-five pick Adbul Carter put him in a blender as Jackson allowed five pressures, three hurries and two sacks in State College. How did Jackson respond? He allowed 10 pressures, seven hurries and zero sacks in the Buckeyes’ final eight games. What’s more, he allowed just two pressures and two hurries in the College Football Playoff:

  • Tennessee: 34 pass-blocking snaps, zero sacks, zero hurries, one pressure
  • Oregon: 27 pass-blocking snaps, zero sacks, zero hurries, zero pressures
  • Texas: 38 pass-blocking snaps, zero sacks, zero hurries, zero pressures
  • Notre Dame: 27 pass-blocking snaps, zero sacks, zero hurries, zero pressures

It’s hard to comprehend how impressive that is.

All four teams had top-18 defenses this season (Tennessee ranked seventh, Oregon 18th, Texas fourth and Notre Dame 10th) and considered their defensive lines a strength, particularly their defensive ends. Yet, Tennessee’s James Pearce Jr., Oregon’s Jordan Burch and Matayo Uiagalelei, Texas’ Trey Moore and Colin Simmons and Notre Dame’s Jaylen Sneed didn’t stand a chance against Ol’ Donny.

Howard, Smith, Sawyer and Downs were all excellent in 2024, but Ohio State’s MVP this year was Jackson, an All-American guard who put his team above himself and saved the season.

 ONE OF THE ALL-TIME GREATS. In 155 years of college football, Emeka Egbuka may be one of a kind. 

After a four-year career with the Buckeyes, Egbuka will go down as one of the program’s all-time great receivers with a program-record 205 catches for 2,868 yards and 24 touchdowns. However, at no point during his time at Ohio State was he the team’s No. 1 pass catcher, heeding to JSN in 2021, Marvin Harrison Jr. in 2022 and 2023 and Jeremiah Smith in 2024.

Who else has a résumé like that?

That’s some incredible stuff.

The legendary Buckeye had a legendary moment after the national championship game.

Egbuka has been one of my favorite Buckeyes to cover in my four years on the Ohio State beat, so I was so happy to see him have that moment on Monday.

Cheers to him on a great career.

He went out on top!

 SONG OF THE DAY.  “We Are the Champions” - Queen.

 CUT TO THE CHASE. The Columbus Blue Jackets repped Ohio State ahead of their game against the Islanders on Monday... Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner elected to Baseball Hall of Fame... "Once in a lifetime" snow hits parts of the U.S. South... Trends from the last time Ohio State won a national title in 2015.

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