Last season, a week after scoring an exhilarating victory against Penn State, the Ohio State Buckeyes laid a massive egg on the road at Iowa. The loss to the Hawkeyes ultimately was the hurdle Ohio Stat could not clear to get into the College Football Playoff, and now some former Buckeyes at the NFL combine are being asked what many want to know. What the heck happened?
Unfortunately, it’s not a question some Ohio State players can answer months after the impact of the game.
“I just look at them and I don’t know what happened,” Ohio State’s Jayln Holmes said at the combine, per Land of 10. “I’m still trying to find those answers out. They played the best game of their life. That’s all it is. We didn’t come to play that day. They came to play. I feel they played the best game of their life, and the score showed.”
“It’s a tough subject and something you’ve got to handle head on because we didn’t do good enough that day,” former Buckeye defensive end Sam Hubbard said.
This just goes to show that loss is still perplexing to many. And it makes sense it would be a question brought up to players at the NFL combine, as NFL teams are interested in digging into the mindset of players in various situations and, perhaps, get an inside look at how a player has learned from a negative experience. Ohio State battled back from that loss quite well, of course. The Buckeyes went on to play for and win the Big Ten championship and then capped the season with a victory over USC in the Cotton Bowl.