J.T. Tuimoloau earns Big Ten Defensive Player of Week honor after historic performance
COLUMBUS — The most obvious Ohio State weekly award of the season is now official.
Buckeyes defensive end J.T. Tuimoloau was named the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week for his performance against Penn State on Saturday.
His stat line: six total tackles, two sacks, three tackles for loss, a pass breakup and two interceptions, one of which he took the other way for a touchdown. He forced all four Penn State turnovers to completely wreck what the Nittany Lions were doing offensively on multiple drives.
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It certainly was Tuimoloau’s best performance of his career to date. And it came in a major moment against a good team on the road.
“It’s all kind of a blur the way it happened,” Ohio State coach Ryan Day said about his star defensive end. “But to intercept balls like that as as a defensive and get a defensive score, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that before. That’s big-time. And J.T. has put so much hard work into this. He’s an unbelievable player, but he’s a better person. And you can see his talent. This is kind of his coming-out party today. And he’s been he’s been working at it. Nobody wants it more than he does.
“So on this stage, for him to play the way he did, it means a lot to him. And I think that his teammates are very proud of him.”
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For his historic performance, J.T. Tuimoloau was tabbed with a major award from the Big Ten office. It was an easy decision to hand that honor to the sophomore defensive end.
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