Ohio State cornerback Damon Arnette is now a well-read college graduate, but if you ask him, he might tell you that his favorite thing he’s ever read is Peyton Ramsey’s third-down pass last Saturday inside the Ohio State 10-yard line.
Arnette read the Indiana quarterback’s rollout and waited for him to throw the ball back to Hoosier tight end Peyton Hendershot. Arnette stepped in front of the pass, caught it, spun around, maintained his balance and set out upon a 96-yard journey that was all the confirmation he ever needed that he made the right decision when he put the NFL on hold for another year.
It wasn’t the first time he knew he made the correct decision, however.
“That interception just reminded me like, ‘See, I told you you shoulda came back,'” Arnette said this week. “But the first time I realized it was really the first game. I’m getting ready for the FAU game. I was like, ‘This is what you came back for, to be here with all your brothers.’ And I looked around and saw just everybody I wanted to be here with. So that first game coming out of that tunnel, I realized I made the right decision.”
The only guy more excited during that return than Arnette was his head coach Ryan Day.
Following the game, Day said he wanted to run into the end zone, grab the football, and punt it out of the end zone, which is apparently an Arnette staple in practice.
“He gets that from me,” Arnette said smiling.
But to see your head coach get so excited is something that every player feeds off of and it’s a feeling they want to experience again and again.
“It’s motivating because you want to do it again and make him hype again,” Arnette said. “He said that, I was like ‘I’m gonna get another one and see if he really does it.’ It’s just fun.”
Fun is something that this defense is having more of than they did a year ago, but if there was an overriding message this week from Day and his players, it was that there was still plenty of mistakes to correct with this team.
“It’s a lot of fun out there,” Arnette said, “but Coach Day makes a strong emphasis on knowing when to have fun and knowing when to lock in and I feel like we do a great job of both.”
When Day watches Damon Arnette return an interception 96 yards for a touchdown, he’s seeing more than just the 96 yards. He’s seeing every yard and step — and mis-step — that got Arnette to this point. Day has seen the struggles on the field, but he also knows the work that has been put in over the offseason to make those 96 yards — and many more to come — a reality.
“I’m really proud of that kid,” Day said. “You know, he’s been through a lot. He had to pass a bunch of classes academically last spring and this summer [in order to graduate when he wanted]. And to press reset, he’s given himself completely to Jeff Hafley. And now he’s practiced really, really well. He’s prepared well, and then to see him make that play was awesome.
“Just a few plays before he was out. He got banged around. And at that point in the game, he could have taken himself out, and he went right back in and makes that play. So really happy for him. He deserves that play. He’s been through a lot and it’s great to get that play for him.”
For Arnette, weaving in and out of traffic was a thrill, but coasting into the end zone with his teammates was a perfect moment. And following the biggest play he’s ever made, all he wanted to do was credit his teammates.
“That’s the biggest play I’ve made in my life,” he said. “But the thing is, I just know how hard the D-line was rushing, you know what I’m saying, they do it every play, so I was just a pawn in that whole play.”
Damon Arnette came back for a number of reasons and 96 of them took place last Saturday in one fell swoop.
And according to Arnette, there will be more to follow.
“Yeah, there’s a couple more coming from the defense,” he said.
“But that’s a start.”