Jack Sawyer admits winning national championship is more important than beating Michigan

Former Ohio State EDGE rusher Jack Sawyer admitted winning a national title last season erased the pain of losing to Michigan. Ultimately, winning a title is more important than The Game.

While Sawyer was visibly emotional following the loss to Michigan to end the regular season, he and the Buckeyes more than made up for it. Some fans might use the Michigan loss as a dig, but Sawyer loved the outcome in the end.

Ohio State beat Tennessee, Oregon, Texas and Notre Dame all in a row to win the College Football Playoff. Losing The Game was brutal, especially this year, but it didn’t take away from the ultimate accomplishment.

“Winning a national championship,” Sawyer said on Footbahlin with Ben Roethlisberger. “That takes no emphasis off how important The Game is … But when you win a national championship, if anyone tells you they’d rather go 1-12 and just beat the team up north, you’re crazy. You’re playing this game to win championships. And make no mistake about it, no one wants to beat those guys more than we do. But at the end of the day, there’s nothing we could have done after that. I mean, we have our shot to go chase the ultimate goal, which is to win a national championship.”

The Buckeyes’ offense went quiet in that loss and the defense did it all it could. That included Sawyer’s goal line interception to keep it 10-10 in the fourth quarter. But the lasting image was Sawyer and Ohio State never beating Michigan during his time and ripping down a Michigan flag postgame. 

Still, Sawyer acknowledged the ultimate goal. You play to win championships.

“And like in the NFL, you lose four games in a regular season, you’re probably the one overall seed in the playoffs,” Sawyer said. “So that’s kind of like the approach we took, especially with the expanded playoffs. I think it’s going to continue to be like that. Obviously The Game is still going to be The Game, because it is The Game, the best rivalry in sports. 

“But I think at the end of the day, I think you’d be crazy to say you would rather beat them and not win a national championship instead of win a national championship and not beat them. In a perfect world, you do both of those things. But obviously, you know, we didn’t. But winning a  national championship kind of erases all that, for me it does.”