First Posted: 1/25/2015
COLUMBUS – While Ohio State’s football team was celebrating its national championship with an estimated 46,000 of its fans on Saturday at Ohio Stadium, next season wasn’t far from the minds of many people.
And it wasn’t just the fans who were thinking that way.
Defensive end Joey Bosa stepped to the microphone on the stage set up between the 20-yard line and the 30-yard line at the south end of the field and said, “It still doesn’t feel real. Let’s do it again next year.”
Ezekiel Elliott, who ran for more than 200 yards in each of OSU’s last three games, said repeating as national champion is “definitely what the plan is.”
And in maybe the most intriguing moment of the day, injured quarterback Braxton Miller said, “It’s a privilege and honor to be part of this national championship team in 2014. But guess what? We’ve got another year to do it.”
Whether Miller will return to compete with J.T. Barrett and Cardale Jones for the starting quarterback job next season or transfer is a question that still has not been answered.
But, even though next year is already on the Buckeyes’ agenda and in the dreams of their fans, Saturday was about celebrating the accomplishments of the 2014 national champion team.
“To have a turnout like this on a cold day like today is awesome,” coach Urban Meyer said.
Meyer called this year’s team “one of the most selfless groups of players and people I’ve ever been around.”
What that group shared with each other was a 14-1 season, overcoming the loss of not one, but two Heisman Trophy candidate quarterbacks, surviving an ugly early-season loss to Virginia Tech and getting three straight wins in the postseason as the underdog against Wisconsin, Alabama and Oregon.
And finally it shared Ohio State’s first national championship since the 2002 season.
Meyer called losing Miller to a shoulder injury in preseason, replacing him with Barrett and then having to turn to Jones for the Big Ten championship game, the Sugar Bowl and the national championship game “one of the most intriguing stories in college football history.”
And then he gave the three quarterbacks a new name when he called them “The Magnificent Three.”
Some other things that came out of the celebration:
—-Jones, whose three starts against Wisconsin, Alabama and Oregon amazed many people, used that word himself to describe the season.
“The way we overcame everything is amazing,” he said.
—- Meyer announced that senior wide receiver Evan Spencer, who he had called the team’s Most Valuable Player, would be added to the list of captains for the 2014 team.
Jeff Heuerman, Michael Bennett, Doran Grant, Curtis Grant and Miller were named captains in the preseason.
—-Ohio State tried to recreate one of the highlights of its 2002 national championship celebration by bringing back former player Cie Grant to sing “Carmen Ohio,” but work conflicts and an inability to work out travel arrangements foiled that plan, athletic director Gene Smith said.
—-U.S. Congresswoman Joyce Beatty showed that not everyone around Columbus is a huge Ohio State fan when she congratulated “Coach Urban Meyers” during Saturday’s celebration.
—-Ohio State was presented three trophies for winning its national championship – one from the American Football Coaches Association, one for winning The Associated Press poll and the big one, the College Football Playoff national championship trophy.
—-Meyer praised Miller as an unselfish player and said the quarterback’s decision about next season would be made later.
“I guess that’s what he said,” Meyer said about Miller’s reference to next year. “We’ve been talking all along. It’s a unique situation. We’ll cover that later,” he said.
