Great players make big plays in the biggest moments of games.
That's one reason the Steelers were so happy when they were able to select former Ohio State defensive end Jack Sawyer in the fourth round of the 2025 NFL Draft.
Sawyer had played his best football in the College Football Playoffs, recording 13 tackles, 4.5 sacks, 7 pass defenses, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery for the Buckeyes on their run to the national championship last season.
The forced fumble and fumble recovery both came on the same play in Ohio State's semifinal win over Texas. With the Buckeyes clinging to a 21-14 lead late in the fourth quarter, Texas was threatening to tie the game. But Sawyer sacked Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers, forcing him to fumble. He then scooped up the loose ball and returned it 83 yards for a touchdown.
It was a team captain stepping up at the biggest moment.
"I can't say enough about Jack Sawyer," Ohio State head coach Ryan Day said following the win. "He's a guy who loves being a Buckeye. He loves his teammates. He's done everything we've asked him to do. He's a captain. He's everything that we could possibly ask for in a captain. To make a play like that in that moment, we talked about it before the game. You want to leave a legacy behind? You become a legend. He just became a legend at Ohio State."
Watching proudly all along was the small city of Pickerington, Ohio, located just east of the Ohio State campus in Columbus. It's where Sawyer had first burst onto the scene as a skinny, 6-foot-3, 190-pound freshman before blossoming as a 6-foot-4, 250-pound quarterback-sacking machine.
Nate Hillerich, Pickerington North High School's football coach, wasn't surprised one bit by any of Sawyer's big-game heroics. He'd seen it over the four seasons he'd had Sawyer in his program.
"His freshman season, he ended up rotating playing varsity for us as a freshman," said Hillerich, who had been hired when Sawyer was in eighth grade. "And we're a place at Pickerington, where we've had, you know, a lot of really, really good players. So, you know, he was a freshman. We have a kid, Alex Williams, who just got signed by the, you know, by the Vikings. And Pat Elfein, who's still in the NFL played here. So, you know, playing as a freshman is not normal. (Tight end) Jake Butt didn't play as a freshman who played at Michigan, played in the NFL.
"There was a lot of hype around Jack, just because he was playing multiple grades up when he was in youth football. When he was a fourth grader, they had him playing against sixth graders because he was so big and strong. And I remember, I got hired to coach. The coach I replaced, he went to college to coach, and he was like, 'I'm telling you, this eighth-grader is going to be the best player to ever come through here.' So, you know, coming in, he was always just different, a man among boys."
So much so that many national scouting services had Sawyer as the No. 1 player in his recruiting class by the time he headed to high school.
It was a ranking that Sawyer, as a competitor, took very seriously.
"It's like one of those things, I think, that makes him so great. He wants to be the best," said Hillerich, who said Sawyer wore No. 40 in high school because his favorite player was former Tampa Bay fullback Mike Alstott. "So as a freshman, he wanted to start varsity, and he didn't care that there were kids that were maybe already committed to a college. He thought he was better than them as a freshman. So, just that competitive attitude, it's, it's incredible. And that's what I think it's going to be translated well for him at every level."
Sawyer is so competitive that when one recruiting service bumped him from its top spot, even after he had already committed to Ohio State as Day's first recruit in his first recruiting class, he was ticked off about the perceived slight.
"Yeah, I'm a competitor," Sawyer said. "I think that if you play this game, you've got to always want to be the best. If not, you're probably playing the wrong sport. So, for me, I'm always trying to be the best and anything I do, and really just, you know, attacking it and that stuff matters, you know, trying to be the best and working hard as you can to be that."
That drive and work ethic showed up even when, in his junior season, Hillerich had to make Sawyer his emergency quarterback.
Pickerington North had one quarterback move away and then its starter got injured.
Hillerich turned to his star defensive lineman, who had seen some time as a tight end, to take over the team's offense.
"It was fun," Sawyer said of playing quarterback. "it was just something to do to help the team win. And I enjoyed it. But, you know, obviously you know, It was a defensive end and outside linebacker, so that was, that was very apparent. We ran a lot of QB powers and didn't do a whole lot of throwing the ball."
It did show that Sawyer was willing to do whatever necessary to help his team.
And if he was going to play quarterback, he would be the best quarterback he could be.
Sawyer completed 79 of 135 passes for 1,056 yards with nine touchdowns and just three interceptions while also rushing for 386 yards and six touchdowns. On defense, all he did was lead the team with 13.5 sacks and 19 tackles for a loss.
Much as he did at Pickerington North, Sawyer saw time immediately as a true freshman at Ohio State, recording 13 tackles, including three for a loss, and three sacks. He wasn't the dominant player he had been in high school, but that was to be expected.
"That was kind of the COVID year. I remember watching him on TV, and he was kind of getting pushed around, bullied a little bit," Hillerich said. "He'll be mad I said that, but I think it was a welcome to college football. You know, you're playing against grown men then. And I think he understood the extra work. He's physically God-gifted in high school. You can just kind of dominate players. But understanding everything, the details of playing the position of defensive end, I think he really bought into, just the stories I heard about him working in the offseason, coming to the facility later to work on his craft."
It paid off. Sawyer saw his numbers climb each season. His sack total went from 3 to 4.5 to 6.5 to 9 his final season. His tackles also went up each year in a similar way. He was always around the ball.
"This guy is really good, tough, unbelievable, intangibles football character, and he also has a knack for making plays when they're needed," said Steelers defensive coordinator Teryl Austin. "You see him make a lot of big plays at crunch time, which tells me he's going to be the type of guy that shows up when you need them, when plays are needed. Really, just unbelievable across the board, no holes in terms of who he is and what he's about, and I think he'll fit in nicely in our room."
Hillerich said Sawyer has always been extremely serious about the game, even at a young age.
"It's business. You don't have to worry about anything outside of, you know, any problems outside of football," Hillerich said. "It's going in there and getting to work and just relentless effort, I think very much so."
In that regard, Sawyer sounds like he'll fit in very well with the likes of T.J. Watt, Alex Highsmith and Nick Herbig in the Steelers' outside linebacker room.
"He's a smart guy. He understands the game," Austin said. "He gets himself on edges when he needs to get on edges to rush. He knows when to use the bull rush. And it's just, I think one of those things, that's how guys have a knack for it. They really study it. They understand the game, they understand the situations, and he takes advantage of all that instead of just playing. There's a difference between just running around playing and understanding the situation you're in and being able to apply that as the game goes."
• Dale Lolley is co-host of "SNR Drive" on Steelers Nation Radio. Subscribe to the podcast here: Apple Podcast | iHeart Podcast Pittonline@iheartmedia.com
Some viewed the selection of Sawyer as a luxury pick by the Steelers considering the other outside linebackers the team has on its roster.
But the Steelers saw an opportunity to add another good football player and jumped at the opportunity to do so.
They just wanted to add a quality person and player to the roster.
"Based on how we had him graded, we spent a lot of time with him, he just fits here, and it made sense," said General Manager Omar Khan. "But we had a really good grade on him, and it was hard to pass up at that point."
So, they didn't.
"(I) love Jack Sawyer," Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin said. "It's easy to love not only in terms of his resume but his relationship with the game, his approach to football business, how he's viewed and received by his teammates."
And his community.
Pickerington is located about two hours from Cincinnati and Cleveland. It's also about two hours from Pittsburgh.
Hillerich is quite certain that the Steelers will have a bunch of new fans in central Ohio, not just because of the addition of Sawyer, but Ohio State teammate and quarterback Will Howard, as well.
And for Sawyer, he got to play his college football in his backyard. Now, he'll play his professional football close to home, as well.
"It's incredible," Hillerich said. "I guarantee, the Steelers have plenty of fans and fans all over, but they got a lot more, a lot more fans now from central Ohio and Columbus, with him being a Buckeye for four years.
"He's, I think, one of the most well-known Buckeyes in central Ohio right now. Everybody's rooting for him. The ability to go to a game, be able to drive to a game and drive back makes it incredible. I've got young kids, and they've already been looking at the schedule, which one can we go to to try to see him play. So it is really, really cool."
