Ohio State football broke through, and then its fans broke in.
Students began flooding onto campus almost as soon as Ohio State’s 34-23 win over Notre Dame was over, the Columbus Dispatch reported, despite frigid temperatures in the Midwest. A crowd chanting ‘O-H,’ ‘I-O,’ eventually converged on ‘The Horseshoe’ and successfully forced their way inside the venerable home of Ohio State football.
Videos shared on social media show swarms of fans ‒ some with flags, some dressed for the weather and some not wearing shirts ‒ holding up their phones to chronicle the scene as they walked en masse through the stadium tunnel and then spilled onto the familiar turf. Witnesses said police officers got in on the fun, taking photos for the fans reveling in the Buckeyes’ first national championship in football since 2014.
“It’s crazy. I was surprised that the cops are so supportive,” Natalie Freihammer, an Ohio State senior who took part in the celebration, told The Columbus Dispatch.
Ohio State underwent a remarkable turnaround over the past two months, rebounding from a loss to Michigan in its regular season finale to reel off four-straight wins and emerge on top of the sport once more after the first 12-team College Football Playoff. Losing to the Wolverines again led to more scrutiny about coach Ryan Day and the disappointment lingered into the Buckeyes’ first-round playoff game against Tennessee, when a larger-than-normal contingent of Volunteers’ fans were inside Ohio Stadium.
But Ohio State’s title run has muted those concerns and the fans returned in droves again Tuesday to welcome the Buckeyes back from Atlanta. The festivities will continue during an official celebration with the team and fans inside Ohio Stadium on Sunday at 12 p.m. ET, according to the university’s athletic department. Admission and parking are free, with more details to be released this week.
‘There was a point where there was a lot of people that counted us out,’ Day said after Monday’s game, ‘and we just kept swinging and kept fighting.’
Perhaps a few of those doubters were among the people breaking into Ohio Stadium after what these Buckeyes pulled off.