That Was Just Too Cruel

Fine. I'll admit it.

C.J. Stroud is the real deal.

I never imagined he'd take it to us like this.

We put up 31 points in the first half, but Ohio State answered with 28 — and when it came to touchdown passes, Stroud actually had one more than I did by the break.

By halftime, that had become my motivation.

Truthfully, my pride was stinging a little, too.

My teammates understood why I sat in the locker room with my mouth shut tight, and the moment the third quarter began, C.J. Stroud was already leading another drive, piling more points onto Ohio State's total.

31–35. They'd taken the lead.

For the first time all season, we were the ones chasing — forced to start an offensive drive from behind.

▷ 3Q – 10:38

"GO RED- 80!!"

…

"SET! SET! HUT!!"

Shotgun.

Taking Cedric's clean snap as always, I fired a pass toward my designated target running his assigned route.

Ladd — quite possibly the best slant-route runner in all of college football — was the key target on this play. He shook the Ohio State cornerback beautifully, hauled in the catch, and tacked on just under ten more yards. We'd moved the chains 21 yards and lined up a fresh first down.

Ah, right. Almost forgot.

Just as I'd suspected, the rumors about Ohio State's No. 35, Tommy Eichenberg, being injured were complete garbage. His number had been staring me in the face from the moment we took the field for warmups, and today he was still flying all over the place like nothing had happened.

But that didn't change a thing about how we attacked Ohio State.

"We're running Jack Hallow."

"…"

On top of our base offensive scheme, I layered in the formation, the blocking scheme, and the receiver movements the play demanded. The moment I finished clapping, everyone broke to their spots — and this time, I lined up under center and settled in for the snap.

Brock needed a little extra time to get to his landmark, so instead of shotgun, I'd go under center — a natural way to buy us those precious seconds.

After selling the play fake, pretending to hand the ball off to Kenny, I turned to run my read and caught sight of No. 44's movement.

The most aggressive rusher on Ohio State's defense.

One of the things that had jumped out most in our prep was their left tackle attacking far more violently from the opposite side of my blind side, hunting pass-rush opportunities.

While Kingsley did his job and stoned No. 44, I snapped my eyes to Brock and surveyed the field.

The instant conclusion: throwing there would be suicide. Too many bodies clogging the throwing lane up front, and worse, the safety behind it all was lurking, patiently hunting an interception.

They'd read the play.

So what now?

Ohio State's D-line had been torn violently left and right, and the linebackers had all dropped down — the space directly behind the line of scrimmage was wide open.

I abandoned the pass without hesitation and sprinted into the churning mass of bodies, slicing through the gap that had opened up naturally, chewing off yardage as I went.

The moment I started running, No. 35 — who had been dropping back in coverage — charged down at me, and I chose to slide before contact ever came.

Thuuud—!

Roughly seven yards, give or take.

"Nice sliding."

"Thanks."

I wasn't sure whether that counted as trash talk or not, but I answered No. 35's compliment and looked back toward the sideline.

We still needed 23 yards to reach the red zone and start dialing up our option packages — first, I had to convert this Second & 3 and earn a fresh set of downs.

If our running back quality were even close to last year's, I'd have happily pound the rock and call it a day. Instead, the sideline was signaling something different.

More tight end usage. Keep hammering it.

This time, the Big Guy — Darnell.

"GO- RED 80!! HUT!!"

The play designed to reliably secure three to five tough yards clicked into place with ease, and we had another first down.

Fast tempo, play after play.

I wasn't hesitating for even a second.

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You didn't need to watch the scoreboard filling up point by point to know it — today's game had a blistering pace.

Ohio State favored a lean, up-tempo approach on offense too, and C.J. Stroud was executing it to a tee.

After confirming Jordan's touchdown catch, I jogged toward the right sideline, looked over at the Ohio State players now standing that much closer, and gave a slow, deliberate nod.

Some of them reacted with Immediately irritation — well, sharply, anyway — and before a flag could fly, I turned myself around and told the approaching official that I'd merely been looking at the fans over there.

The lead was back with us.

Momentum swings like this were always welcome.

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▷ 3Q – 01:17

The highest-scoring game in Peach Bowl history had been the 91-point shootout between LSU and Oklahoma in 2019.

With today's game all but certain to shatter that mark, Ohio State head coach Ryan Day looked at his quarterback — who had gone conspicuously quiet — and felt a knot of worry tighten in his chest.

Overheat.

What C.J. Stroud had shown in the first half was, without question, the finest football of his college career, and right up until that first third-quarter drive, it looked like the wave would keep rolling.

But the moment Georgia wrested the lead back, something broke inside the single most important engine driving Ohio State's offense.

And with it, the flow of the game swung violently toward Georgia.

They surrendered possession after just one minute and twenty seconds, then allowed a score two minutes and forty-three seconds later. They handed the ball back after another one minute and seventeen seconds — and then, forty-nine seconds after that, gave up a 63-yard touchdown.

In the blink of an eye, the game was a 17-point chasm, and on a drive they desperately needed, it ended in an interception.

It was possible. Perfectly possible.

By common sense, by logic, both.

"…"

A bowl game with a National Championship berth hanging in the balance.

And on top of that, they had to face Georgia's defense.

That meant fatigue accumulating at more than double the rate of an ordinary game — and having run that hard from the opening whistle, it was no surprise the fuel was burning faster than usual.

'How?'

Where C.J. Stroud was faltering, Ryan Day found himself marveling instead at Dwayne Moi Stone, who seemed to burn only hotter as the second half wore on.

The cornerstone of Ohio State's defensive improvement this year — pressure from the blind side's opposite edge — had been shrugged off with almost insulting ease.

Especially when the kid moved as though he'd memorized the tendencies of No. 22 Steele Chambers and No. 44 J.T. Tuimoloau, Day had found it so hard to believe he'd asked his coaches about it several times.

And now, the Georgia quarterback who'd just been handed the ball was stepping back onto the field.

Ryan Day gave sullen C.J. Stroud's shoulder a light tap of consolation, then bit down hard on his lower lip, the anxiety crawling right back up.

Thanks to Malaki Starks's interception, Georgia was set up at the Ohio State 43-yard line.

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If a quarterback had thrown for 410 yards on 70 percent passing with four touchdown passes, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the scoreboard should have read a victory.

But the board the world was watching right now bore a completely different result.

▷ 4Q 00:08

"Historic" wasn't a strong enough word for Dwayne Moi Stone's performance today — it was magnificent enough to bury everything C.J. Stroud had done, despite Stroud leaving behind numbers that would have been staggering in any other year.

Television viewership: 29.3 million.

Peak rating: a jaw-dropping 13.7 percent.

In front of the tens of millions watching him, Dwayne Moi Stone hadn't offered a proof or a statement — just himself, exactly as he was. And now, having punched his ticket to the National Championship, he was out there soaking it in with the fans.

Every time he swept his outstretched arms up and down, the decibel level inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium climbed right along with them.

With just one week left in the long, grueling TFM campaign, the Seattle Seahawks had stepped on a landmine.

They'd beaten the Jets, 7–3.

And the reason that loss was now a firestorm: the New York Jets — whose playoff hopes were already dead — were suspected of deliberately lying down in order to sabotage Seattle's TFM.

There was no explanation for benching their starting quarterback and top receiver, and nothing resembling a real play call ever came in from their sideline. The Seattle staff up in the coaching tower that day swore the Jets' coaches spent the whole game shelling peanuts, and drew the entirely reasonable inference that New York had never intended to win in the first place.

But Seattle couldn't file a complaint with the league office — because for this one season, intentional losing was fully sanctioned.

They themselves had cashed in on it plenty of times, and crying foul about tanking now would have looked hypocritical to anyone with eyes.

There was still a week left, yes — but to flip the SOV tiebreaker and seize the No. 1 overall pick, Pittsburgh and Chicago would each need to beat Cleveland and Minnesota by 30 and 14 points or more, respectively.

Short of that kind of miracle, there was no scenario — none — in which Seattle walked away with the No. 1 pick of the 2023 NFL Draft.

A bolt from the blue for the Seahawks.

They'd been in emergency mode since the night before.

"What's our best move?"

John Schneider, silent for a long stretch amid the suffocating atmosphere, finally spoke — looking around at a staff that couldn't seem to open their mouths.

The silence held.

"Damn it. One play, and the whole thing falls apart."

Seattle had wanted, at minimum, to secure the No. 2 pick.

C.J. Stroud or Bryce Young. They were going to land one of the two.

Even if the season ended exactly like this, they'd keep the No. 3 slot — but that didn't change the fact that the plan had been blown to pieces. And if they somehow went and won against the Rams, they'd slide all the way to No. 4, which would mean a full year of tanking ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠reduced to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ashes.

That was just too cruel.

"I never imagined a win where we gave up only seven points could feel this miserable."

"That's… football for you."

"What about Mr. Paul?"

"He's fine. I have no intention of holding you responsible — you know that. Paul Allen runs this team for one reason: the city he was born and raised in. Don't worry about your position. I know better than anyone how hard you've worked, and how well."

Chuck Arnold's words gave John Schneider a small measure of comfort.

But the disappointment refused to fade.

Seattle stood at a critical crossroads. The limits of their talent were showing. TFM or no TFM, unless the roster was torn down to the studs one way or another, sustained success would be brutally hard to come by.

Which was exactly why they'd needed Dwayne Moi Stone.

The man to become the axis of a new era.

Thanks to his heroics in the SEC Championship and the bowl game, Moi's popularity had soared to the level of the NFL's biggest stars, and his commercials were running on a loop on every channel.

If the leadership and the brilliance he showed at Georgia weren't a mirage, Seattle could have leaped forward within three years.

But now, all of it meant nothing.

As of today, they had to start evaluating other quarterbacks.

Of course, they'd been doing that all along — but only ever as PLAN B, or PLAN C at a stretch. They'd never dug deep.

Now the choice was being forced on John Schneider.

And all day long, today—

'It feels like a dream.'

— he still couldn't accept reality.