Devin Smith and Steve Miller watched the game at home with their families in Frisco, Texas, and Cleveland, respectively, while Doran Grant visited a friend’s house in Akron to view the highly anticipated action on TV.
The three former Ohio State football teammates who were high school stars in the Akron-Canton area experienced blasts from the past as the Buckeyes defeated Notre Dame 34-23 on Monday night at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, capturing their first national championship in a decade.
Massillon graduate Smith, Canton McKinley graduate Miller and St. Vincent-St. Mary graduate Grant played key roles for Ohio State when it finished the 2014 season by beating Oregon 42-20 for the national title.
With the triumph on Jan. 12, 2015, the Buckeyes prevailed in the first College Football Playoff. OSU’s most recent taste of glory capped the first expanded CFP featuring a 12-team format. The CFP had previously used a four-team field.
“No matter what, you’re always going to talk about Ohio State when you talk about college football playoffs,” Smith, a former Buckeyes wide receiver, said Tuesday during a phone interview with the Beacon Journal.
The 2014 and 2024 Ohio State national title teams share some similarities
A former Ohio State cornerback and captain who coaches STVM’s football team, Grant explained he’s proud of the full-circle nature of OSU’s accomplishments.
“Both championships were firsts in the playoff era, and we were the team to get it done each time,” Grant, 32, said by phone. “It’s like we literally set the standard. That’s one thing we say at Ohio State, that we set the standard of what success really looks like and what championship DNA looks like. I think it’s another example of it — 10 years later, doing the same thing with a different format and a different coach.”
The 2014 Ohio State team coached by Urban Meyer and the 2024 Buckeyes coached by Ryan Day faced scrutiny during their championship journeys.
In Week 2 of the 2014 season, Ohio State fell 35-21 to Virginia Tech in Columbus. The Buckeyes plummeted to No. 22 in the Associated Press Top 25 Poll after entering the season ranked fifth. However, they didn’t lose again and finished 14-1.
“Anything is possible,” Miller, who played defensive end for the Buckeyes, said by phone. “When you’re going through tough times, you’ve just got to keep your head down and keep fighting, and you will come out on top like we did in 2014. That’s what Coach Meyer said after we lost to Virginia Tech.”
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Ohio State bounced back from a loss to Michigan to win a national title
The 2024 edition of Ohio State lost 32-31 at Oregon on Oct. 12 and 13-10 at home to archrival Michigan on Nov. 30. The second setback cost the Buckeyes an appearance in the Big Ten title game and prompted the masses to call for Day’s job.
But four consecutive CFP wins (42-17 over Tennessee, 41-21 over Oregon, 28-14 over Texas and the 11-point victory over Notre Dame) provided redemption. Ohio State finished 14-2.
“It was good to see them boys go out there and get the job done, especially with everything that they went through after losing against ‘that team up north,’” Smith said. “It was cool to see them close it out the right way.”
Quarterback Will Howard played every game for the 2024 Buckeyes. Their 2014 predecessors won it all with third-string quarterback Cardale Jones, a Cleveland Glenville graduate. Braxton Miller missed the season with an injured shoulder, and backup J.T Barrett suffered a broken ankle on Nov. 29, 2014, against Michigan.
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The 2014 national champion Ohio State Buckeyes dealt with a tragedy
Adversity in the realm of sports, such as a loss or an injury, usually cannot compare to tragedy off the field. Unfortunately for everyone involved, those elements overlapped in November 2014 at Ohio State. Kosta Karageorge, a walk-on senior defensive lineman, died by suicide, the coroner who reviewed his death ruled.
“It was just kind of tough, so we would just all try to stay together as brothers, and the coaches just tried to keep us together as much as possible,” Steve Miller said.
Ohio State players donned “53” decals on their helmets as a tribute to Karageorge in their final three games.
“It was a lot of ups and downs that season,” Miller said.
With defensive TDs in common, Steve Miller saw himself in Jack Sawyer
To this day, Ohio State fans approach Miller and remind him about one of the highs. He returned an interception 41 yards for a touchdown with 3:21 left in the third quarter of OSU’s 42-35 win over Alabama in a CFP semifinal on Jan. 1, 2015.
Born and raised in Canton, Miller is a father of three whose wife, Amy, is a former Ohio State volleyball player. Miller, 32, said his children “are always going to get to see their dad making a great play on the big stage.”
A similar play unfolded on Jan. 10, when Buckeyes defensive end Jack Sawyer scored the final touchdown in Ohio State’s 28-14 CFP semifinal win over Texas by strip-sacking quarterback Quinn Ewers, recovering the fumble and returning it 83 yards for a touchdown with 2:13 left in the fourth quarter.
“When Jack got that strip-sack and took it to the house, I had flashbacks of me just running the ball for that pick six,” Miller said. “I know the feeling. I got goose bumps just watching.”
Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith is ‘a generational talent,’ Devin Smith says
Smith caught a 47-yard touchdown pass from Jones earlier during the same third quarter in which Miller produced a defensive TD against Alabama. Later, the receiver-quarterback tandem also connected once for 45 yards in the national title game against Oregon, setting up a 1-yard rushing TD by Jones with 4:49 left in the second quarter.
Smith, his wife, Aliysha, and their four kids watched Monday night as Ohio State essentially sealed its win when wide receiver Jeremiah Smith, a freshman sensation, caught a 56-yard pass from Howard. Jayden Fielding then made a 33-yard field goal to put the Buckeyes ahead by 11 points with 26 seconds remaining.
“He’s a generational talent, man,” Devin Smith, 32, said of Jeremiah Smith. “He has it all. There’s a lot of kids who come in who may need a year or a couple games to really show what they’re about, and he came in day one and tore it up. So, man, I’m looking forward to watching him the rest of his career at Ohio State and moving on to the next level.”
How being an Ohio State national champion can stick with a player
Devin Smith said he’s not related to Jeremiah Smith, yet when Devin Smith and Grant were teenagers, they learned through relatives they’re cousins. Both of them are Akron natives who grew up running track together and eventually used their speed to reach the NFL in 2015, Smith as a second-round draft pick of the New York Jets and Grant as a fourth-round selection of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Smith went to Ellet for two years before transferring to Massillon, where another member of the 2014 Buckeyes, cornerback Gareon Conley, played football. Grant attended STVM with linebacker Dante Booker and wide receiver Parris Campbell, both of whom were with Ohio State in 2014. Those are merely a few of the connections the Akron-Canton area had with the Buckeyes a decade ago.
“The fact that a bunch of guys from Northeast Ohio defeated the odds and climbed to the top and won it all, it shows a lot,” Smith said. “There’s talent all over in Ohio, and I think we get overlooked a lot with all the other states. There’s great football all over the place, but in Ohio, man, we’re truly built different.”
The Buckeyes were built like national champions then and now.
Ohio State honored its 2014 team during an on-field ceremony between the first and second quarters on Oct. 26, when the Buckeyes defeated Nebraska 21-17 in Columbus.
“The farther and farther away you get from the national championship — now it’s 10 years — and to be relevant just because it’s something that you won on a big stage, it’s amazing to still feel that energy and that attention to a degree,” Grant said. “It definitely puts me in places and in different rooms that give me opportunities to further myself. I can honestly say I’m just grateful.”
For Smith, one of the most rewarding feelings emerges when other people identify him as a national champion in front of his kids.
“It brings a smile to my son because he is like, ‘Man, dad, you really did it,’” Smith said. “So for me, it’s awesome.”
Nate Ulrich can be reached at nulrich@thebeaconjournal.com. On Twitter: @ByNateUlrich.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Ohio State football’s national championship thrills 2014 Buckeyes
