You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who thought Rutgers was going to walk into Ohio Stadium and give the Ohio State Buckeyes their first loss of the year. Well, guess what, folks: That did not come even close to happening, as the Buckeyes defended their home field with a 49-10 victory.
There wasn’t much drama in the game, but during the fourth quarter, there were some pleasantries exchanged between the two teams, including both head coaches. Ohio State faced a fourth-and-2 in its own territory with just under 10 minutes to go, so they decided to send punter Jesse Mirco onto the field. Instead of booting it, Mirco had an acre of space ahead of him, so he tucked it and ran for 22 yards and a first down.
Rutgers players were, unsurprisingly, real mad. One of them, return man Aron Cruickshank, came up and leveled Mirco after he went out of bounds, which led to some extracurriculars between the two teams. Greg Schiano ran over to help break it up, but once that was done, he decided to do some pointing and screaming at Ryan Day, with the two needing to be separated.
A lot of Mad all over the place pic.twitter.com/KNHmRnvCQ0
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) October 1, 2022
The pair were on Urban Meyer’s staff in 2017 and 2018, and after the game, it appears they cleared the air with one another.
Ryan Day Greg Schiano pic.twitter.com/K0RCWtND23
— Big Ten Network (@BigTenNetwork) October 1, 2022
Now, this might not have been a called fake punt from the sidelines, as punters have increasingly done the thing where they roll out, survey how much space is available, and make a decision to either kick or take off. There was, clearly, a ton of space for Mirco to run into, but still, this probably should’ve just been a punt.