OSU’s Grant makes memorable debut in ’Shoe
By Tim May
The Columbus Dispatch
Saturday, September 2, 2006 9:34 PM
As Larry Grant sprinted out of the tunnel and onto the field for his first game in Ohio Stadium yesterday, he knew he wasn't at City College of San Francisco any more.
Forget stands with a thousand or fewer fans like he played in front of the past two years. There were 103,369 eager to see top-ranked Ohio State kick off its season.
"I was real excited," Grant said. "I don't think I could get any better feeling than how I felt coming out of that tunnel with all those people."
But he did get a better feeling about 25 minutes later. He delivered what, in the final analysis, was the defensive play of the game.
Ohio State had jumped to a 21-0 lead in the first quarter, but Northern Illinois and its talented back Garrett Wolfe seemed poised to get back into it. Wolfe had just taken a flip pass 65 yards to the OSU 12. Maybe it was true what the analysts had been saying all preseason, that the Achilles heel to No.1 Ohio State was going to be the defense that was replacing nine starters.
Then the Huskies' quarterback Phil Horvath, under pressure, tried to beat the Buckeyes with another pass to the right middle. Grant intercepted, and he returned it 49 yards to set up OSU's fourth touchdown.
"That was the craziest part," said Grant, who had rotated into the middle linebacker spot for starter James Laurinaitis on that series. "But it felt good."
That went ditto for the rest of the defense, safety Brandon Mitchell said. He wasn't surprised to see the rise of Grant, voted the top defensive player in junior college by a national panel of coaches last year.
"He's been making big plays all through camp ... so we knew he could make a play," Mitchell said.
Mitchell played a big part in it, too, rushing hard on a zone blitz from the quarterback's right, which was the direction Horvath tried to flip the pass.
"That's all credit to the coaches," Mitchell said of a staff headed by coordinator Jim Heacock. "They picked up on some things Northern Illinois did throughout last season. I was just blitzing off the edge to get some pressure, and it turned out to be the perfect defense for that play."
Mitchell had an active day, leading the team with nine tackles, including eight solo. But he thought his play was indicative of the defense as a whole, which had some trouble with Wolfe (171 yards rushing, 114 receiving) but most of the time made plays when they were needed.
"That's one of the things that coach Heacock has emphasized since the summer camp started, which is have fanatical effort," Mitchell said. "We want to run to the ball and we want to make plays at all times.
"We rolled so many guys through (at least 25 players saw action on defense when the game was still in the balance) because we want to keep fresh guys on the field, and we want to run."
Grant's interception was a great example, Mitchell said.
"Any time a player comes in his first game and makes some good plays like Larry did, it obviously gives him confidence," Mitchell said. "I will add him into the youth and inexperienced group, just because he hadn't played in front of 105,000."
Now he has.
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