With the game ball tucked under his left arm and his scarlet jersey hanging out of his gray pants, Ohio State tailback Maurice Clarett walked off the field Saturday after the 13th-ranked Buckeyes’ 45-21 rout of Texas Tech.
As he neared the dressing-room tunnel, Clarett smiled and waved to a throng of fans chanting “Mau-rice! Mau-rice!” Then a nattily dressed fellow in an Ohio State cap and tie grabbed him by the arm.
“Congratulations,” Archie Griffin told Clarett. “Keep it up, man.”
It’s too early to etch Clarett’s name on the upper-deck railing of the old gray horseshoe alongside the other Buckeye gods–Griffin, Les Horvath, Howard “Hopalong” Cassady, Vic Janowicz and Eddie George, Heisman Trophy winners all.
But in a state where they worship running backs, Clarett became an instant folk hero when he romped for 175 yards, most by a Buckeye freshman in his debut, and three touchdowns.
“I was like a kid living a dream,” Clarett said.
Said quarterback Craig Krenzel: “The thing I like most about him is he wants to win. He doesn’t care if he gets eight carries as long as we walk away with the win.”
The Buckeyes easily did that in the earliest opener in school history.
Coaches like to say that teams don’t win August games, they survive them. That was certainly the case Friday night in Madison, where 25th-ranked Wisconsin needed help from an undisciplined Fresno State team to escape with a shaky victory.
The Buckeyes, by contrast, appeared to be in midseason form despite the muggy 83-degree conditions at kickoff. They did not commit a turnover and kept penalties (five for 37 yards) and mental errors to a minimum.
Krenzel was supposed to be a question mark, but he played well in his first home start, completing 11-of-14 passes for 118 yards and showing decent mobility with 34 rushing yards on four carries.
“Probably what was best about Craig was what was best about our whole team–they all played their roles,” Ohio State coach Jim Tressel said.
The defense limited the potent Texas Tech attack to 15 points in the first 59 minutes. The kicking team averaged 48 yards per punt and nailed its only field-goal attempt, a career-long 45-yarder by Mike Nugent.
But Clarett’s breakout performance is the thing most of the 100,037 fans will remember. According to Buckeye publicists, Clarett was the first true freshman to start at tailback since rosters were thinned in the World War II era.
A product of Warren, Ohio, Clarett, 18, was Ohio’s Mr. Football a year ago. Like most Buckeye recruits, he arrived on campus in a hail of headlines. Unlike most, he lived up to the hype.
Clarett graduated from high school early and enrolled in classes last winter with the intention of making an immediate impact. He did that. He also created a potential headache for Tressel, who has to find enough carries to keep his other tailbacks, Lydell Ross and Maurice Hall, happy.
Clarett, Hall and Ross combined to produce 289 of OSU’s 317 rushing yards.
On Clarett’s sixth carry he took the ball at the Buckeye 41, broke through a gap on the right side of the line and stiff-armed a tackler to the turf.
Clarett set sail for the south end zone. At about the 10-yard line, defensive back Joselio Hanson homed in on him. Clarett brushed him off and skipped over the goal line to give the Buckeyes a 14-0 lead midway through the first quarter.
“I was nervous before the game, but once I saw the fans, it calmed me down,” Clarett said.
Clarett added a 45-yard score and a 2-yard plunge. At 6 feet and 230 pounds, he’s as comfortable sprinting in the open field as he is battering through the wall at the goal line.
“A terrific performance,” Griffin said. “He broke tackles. He made people miss. He showed a lot of strength and speed. He’s the full package.”
Griffin knows about big rookie games. After he fumbled in the only carry of his first game as a freshman in 1972, Griffin set a then-school record with 239 rushing yards in his second game. He went on to become the only player to win two Heisman Trophies.
Nobody’s ready to hand Clarett the Heisman. But it might be wise to make a note of his name.
“My expectations are real high,” Clarett said. “I feel I can go out there and do better.”
