The Ryan Hamby Game

On Sept. 10, 2005, Ohio State had a chance to beat the eventual national champion.

Instead, a lot of people remember one drop.

No. 2 Texas came into Ohio Stadium to face No. 4 Ohio State in one of the biggest nonconference games in school history. More than 105,000 fans packed the ‘Shoe. Vince Young led Texas. Ohio State had A.J. Hawk, Bobby Carpenter, Santonio Holmes, Ted Ginn Jr., Troy Smith and plenty of other future NFL talent, as always.

The Buckeyes had their chances.

They forced three Texas turnovers in Longhorn territory but settled for field goals each time. Josh Huston kicked five field goals in the game. Ohio State moved the ball, created opportunities and spent much of the night in position to win.

Then came the play everyone remembers.

Justin Zwick found tight end Ryan Hamby open in the end zone. The pass hit his hands.

He dropped it.

Ohio State settled for another field goal and led 22-16.

There were still more than 20 minutes left in the game.

That’s the part most people don’t remember.

Hamby didn't drop the ball on the final play. Ohio State still had the lead. The Buckeyes still had opportunities to score. The defense still had opportunities to stop Texas.

Eventually, Vince Young did Vince Young things.

With 2:37 left, he threw a 24-yard touchdown pass that gave Texas the lead. Ohio State later turned the ball over, and Texas escaped Columbus with a 25-22 win.

The Longhorns never lost again and went on to beat USC and win the national championship.

Ohio State finished 10-2.

But for many Buckeye fans, that game became the Ryan Hamby game. He received hate mail after the loss.

Think about that.

A college football player dropped a pass and grown adults believed that justified attacking him personally.

We can be very unforgiving as Buckeyes fans.

When we make mistakes in our own lives, we want people to understand that we were under stress, weren’t thinking clearly, literally and figuratively “took our eye off the ball.”

We wish we could have it back. We want everyone to forgive us.

But when an athlete on OUR TEAM makes a mistake, some of us offer no such grace. We want context for our failures and a lifetime of pain for young men in their teens and early twenties who didn’t make OUR dreams come true.

I love the Buckeyes. I hate it when they lose. But I realized years ago that I am not an Ohio State Buckeye. I have no official association with the university and don’t get invited to alumni events. All I ever did was root for them to win. For a long time prior to that, though, my identity was so wrapped up in the success or failure of this team I had never sacrificed for that a loss would ruin my week.

I just chose at a young age to be a fan of the team. That was my only contribution, while the actual players busted their tails to give me bragging rights on Saturdays.

Sorry for the rant, but many fans remind me of former me.

I digress.

Hamby's drop mattered. But Ohio State didn’t lose the game because of one play.

The Buckeyes forced three turnovers and turned them into field goals instead of touchdowns. They missed another field goal. They allowed the winning touchdown late. They failed to score again after taking a 22-16 lead.

There was plenty of blame to go around. Hamby's mistake was simply the easiest one to see.

That happens in life, too.

Sometimes we take a person's worst moment and turn it into their identity.

We forget everything that came before it and everything that came after it.

That's the real lesson from Ohio State's loss to Texas that day.

It’s okay to criticize the play, just don’t forget the person inside the uniform.

Because most of us have dropped a few passes of our own.

We were just fortunate enough not to do it in front of 105,000 people.