Jack Sawyer, an Ohio State Legend 20 Years in the Making

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This is a football story about love. About loyalty. About the things that once defined a sport before money and NIL and the transfer portal swarmed its very infrastructure.

No, this is something different. Something pure. Something everlasting. Something at the very fabric of what defines college football's innermost brilliance—the intimate connection between a city and its people.

For Ohio State defensive end Jack Sawyer, the star of the College Football Playoff, the national championship on Monday night isn't simply the biggest game of his college football career.

It's the biggest game of his life, one more than 20 years in the making, and…