Even as they’ve turned their focus toward playing in the NFL, the seniors of Ohio State’s 2024 football team are still basking in the glory of winning a national championship.
They were greeted with reminders of their legendary championship run when they returned to the Woody Hayes Athletic Center for last week’s Ohio State pro day. Now overlooking the field where they used to practice as Buckeyes are banners commemorating their national championship victory as well as each of their final three College Football Playoff wins over Oregon, Texas and Notre Dame, and they looked upon those banners with pride before and after their respective workouts for NFL scouts.
“It’s a dream come true, man,” Jack Sawyer said of seeing the banners on the walls. “I mean, it’s been a long four years here, the ups and downs, and I wouldn’t trade any of them for the world. Being able to come back now and see that we left something here feels good.”
Between Ohio State’s pro day and the NFL Scouting Combine, 10 different members of Ohio State’s NFL draft class talked about their favorite memories from the Buckeyes’ national championship run. There were a few common threads between their answers: Winning the national championship and celebrating with their teammates afterward were the sweetest feelings of all, but there were other moments that stood out along the way too, particularly the Buckeyes’ epic win over Texas in the College Football Playoff semifinal at the Cotton Bowl.
Nothing Trumps Winning It All
For some of Ohio State’s seniors, their answer for the best moment of the championship run was obvious: Achieving their ultimate goal by beating Notre Dame in the national title game to win it all.
“Definitely winning the national championship,” Ty Hamilton said. “There’s no better feeling than that to be able to go out there, I mean, with a whole bunch of guys you grew up with for the past five years, I mean, to see us really pull through after hitting a couple bumps in the road and be able to really exert ourselves and really make it all the way to the national championship.”
“I wouldn’t really say a play, I would just say hoisting that national championship trophy at the end of the day,” said Denzel Burke. “No better feeling than that. We’ll be remembered forever in Ohio, so it’s awesome.”
Celebration is Sweet
As Will Howard and Seth McLaughlin looked up at the banners on the wall last Wednesday, both of them said the memories that flooded back into their minds were the postgame celebrations they had with their teammates.
“I think the easiest thing is to say those trophy celebrations, man. Those were something else,” Howard said. “Me and Jack dapping up up there on the Cotton Bowl and having the rose in my mouth at the Rose Bowl. Obviously, feeling the confetti run down and picking that trophy up at the end of it, those are the moments that obviously I feel coming back. It’s still surreal. It’s a blessing.”
“We pointed to those all offseason, hoping to hang these (banners), and seeing all my friends up here on these, seeing tears of joy, happiness, those are like the happiest moments of these guys’ lives up to this point,” McLaughlin said. “So it’s cool to see those kind of immortalized in the Woody.”
Getting more specific, McLaughlin said his favorite memory from the championship run was the Buckeyes’ celebration in the locker room after the national championship game. McLaughlin and his teammates filled their locker room at Mercedes-Benz Stadium with celebratory cigar smoke, and McLaughlin still laughs thinking back on those moments.
“The whole team had one. We were hotboxing that locker room with cigars. The early enrollees were in there, they were just coughing their lungs up,” McLaughlin recalled with a laugh. “That was a good one.”
Seth McLaughlins favorite memory from Ohio States national championship victory: Smoking cigars in the locker room after the game. pic.twitter.com/SMQuvTehZw
— Dan Hope (@Dan_Hope) March 26, 2025
A Legendary Win Over Texas
While all four of Ohio State’s playoff wins en route to the national championship will be remembered fondly by Buckeye fans for years to come, it was apparent which specific win resonated with the Buckeye players most.
Jordan Hancock and Donovan Jackson both identified Ohio State’s 28-14 win over Texas as their favorite moment of the Buckeyes’ CFP run.
“Besides the confetti falling at the end, I would have to say the Cotton Bowl,” said Jackson, a native of Houston, Texas. “That was a fantastic team we went against. We knew coming into that game, it was going to be a fight. So just coming out of that fight on top was a huge thing for our team, and going into the next game, just gaining more confidence.”
“I’d probably say the Texas game was probably the best memory, for sure,” Hancock said. “It was crazy. Just going into Texas and beating Texas, you can’t draw it up any better than that.”
More specifically, JT Tuimoloau identified Sawyer’s 83-yard scoop-and-score touchdown – which turned a chance for Texas to tie the game into a 14-point fourth-quarter lead for the Buckeyes – as his favorite moment of the playoff.
“You’ve got to go with the scoop-and-score from Jack,” Tuimoloau said. “I mean, just seeing where the game was at that time, and it was tied up, it was a close game, and that kind of like changed the whole momentum. And I mean, that’s one play that I’ll remember, and I’m pretty sure everybody will remember for the rest of their lives.”
While Cody Simon said “raising the big trophy” was his favorite memory as a whole, he agreed with Tuimoloau in terms of his favorite specific in-game moment from Ohio State’s championship run.
“I hope that goes down in history for one of the best moments ever,” Simon said. “Because I mean, Jack deserves it. He’s a Columbus kid. I don’t think it (could have) happened to a better person. He went and made that play by himself – or not by himself, but he went to go make that play. And we could all celebrate with him. And it was just awesome.”
Sawyer himself views that play as the means to the bigger end of winning it all, but it remains a special moment he says he’ll carry with him for the rest of his life.
“Knowing that that play helped clinch my team (getting into) the national championship, which was our ultimate goal all year, it’s special to me for multiple reasons,” Sawyer said. “And that especially kind of signified that we finally got the ball to bounce our way when it bounced into my hands, too. That was the break that we’d been needing and looking for all year, and there we go and we break through and win a national championship, which is something that they can never take from us.”
Some Memories Are Meant to Stay Private
For all the great moments that fans were able to witness and stories that players have told about the national championship run, there were surely other memorable moments that happened behind the scenes that haven’t yet been shared with the world. Lathan Ransom decided to keep it that way when he was asked about his favorite memories from the championship run.
“A lot of funny memories and a lot of memories that, you know, they’re going to just stay in the vault,” Ransom said with a laugh.
That said, Ransom was happy to talk about what it meant to him to finish his five-year Ohio State career by winning a national championship.
“Man, it means everything,” Ransom said. “I mean, just to be here five years and just to work for it, it’s all we ever wanted was the banners and this stuff, and to bring that back to here, man, it means the world to me. So I’m just happy to be a part of it.”
That sentiment was echoed by many of Ransom’s teammates.
“When I first got here, I’m walking through and seeing legends on the walls, and now, I’m one of those guys on the walls,” Howard said while looking up at the championship banners at pro day. “It’s surreal, man. It’s cool. It’s what we work for. We talked about we wanted to be remembered, and we left our legacy. That one over there and these ones over here (the banners), they’re pretty damn cool.”
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