Last month, left tackle Taylor Decker couldn’t find the pair of shoes he uses for training, so he pulled the pair of cleats he wore in the national championship out of his locker.
“I actually had confetti in my cleats,” said Decker, a Vandalia Butler graduate. “It was still stuck to the bottom. There’s some in my locker at the Woody (Hayes Athletic Center) right now.”
Defensive tackle Adolphus Washington tried to save some of the same confetti. He scooped pieces off the turf and filled his helmet with it. He left the locker room to pose in the postgame team photo. By the time he returned, an equipment manager had emptied the helmet.
Joshua Perry filled a backpack with confetti and gave it to his mom, along with any other souvenirs he could find, anything that read “national championship” on it.
Offensive coordinator and offensive line coach Ed Warriner keeps an envelope full of confetti, Decker said, and one player filled his sweatpants with confetti before the team left the stadium.
The Buckeyes see reminders of the championship everywhere. Confetti, which one fan is trying to sell on eBay as a “rare collector’s item,” is just one example.
Linebacker Darron Lee grew so tired about hearing about 2014, he complained about it on Twitter last month.
“If you see me in public and ask me anything related to last year,” Lee wrote, “I will laugh at you and continue with what I’m doing. It’s over with.”
Washington echoed that sentiment during Big Ten Media Days on Thursday.
“Everybody is pretty much tired of hearing about last year because it’s behind us and a new season is about to start,” Washington said. “We have to focus on the new season.”
A reporter told Washington he would hear questions about 2014 for the next 15 years. Another said he thought the players would want to talk about last year.
“It’s been a while,” Washington said. “We celebrated with each other. You eventually have to move on.”
The Buckeyes did get almost seven months to revel in the accomplishment. They visited the White House. They rolled out a giant American flag during the national anthem at a Cincinnati Reds game.
Coach Urban Meyer played in a celebrity softball game with Snoop Dogg and others two days before the All-Star Game in Cincinnati. He watched his son play a lot of baseball. He traveled so much with his youngest daughter Gigi this summer, he called it the “Summer of Gigi.”
The long celebration has ended. “The Chase,” the phrase Meyer used to define the 2014 season, has become “The Grind.”
“I had a meeting two days after (the national championship),” Meyer said. “I made it clear to our coaches that maybe it was a mistake in 2006 (when he won his first national championship with Florida). We thought, ‘We’re playing with house money now. It’s going to be really easy.’ It wasn’t. It gets more complicated. But you make sure you never forget the guys you shared it with. That’s where you savor it. I don’t wear rings. That kind of stuff disappears.”
About the Author
