Sometimes, friends get the best of other friends. And sometimes, those friends that win can't help but show extreme exuberance in the fact they just beat their buddy.
"It was just natural emotion. Of course I'm not celebrating him being hurt," Ohio State All-American and two-time Big Ten Defensive Lineman of the Year Joey Bosa said Wednesday. "I had no idea he was hurt."
"He" in this case is Michigan quarterback Jake Rudock, who Bosa blasted and drove to the Michigan Stadium turf early in the fourth quarter of Ohio State's 42-13 victory against the Wolverines Saturday. Rudock was motionless on the ground when the play ended, having had his left shoulder take the brunt of Bosa's 6-foot-6, 275-pound frame after the latter blew past his blocker.
Rudock, a high school teammate of Bosa's in Florida, didn't even see defensive end coming. As a result, he left the game with an injury and never returned. It all but sealed the victory for Ohio State, and Bosa posted a photo of the celebration of his fifth sack of 2015 to his Instagram page. The caption? "Sorry Jake," as the quarterback laid limp in the background and Bosa celebrated.
"Of course you never want to see anybody hurt and I didn't know he was hurt until after the fact, but I'm happy it's not that serious of an injury," Bosa said.
Bosa said he texted Rudock after the game to make sure his friend was OK, and found out Rudock's injury wasn't as bad as it could have been — "I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say what he has so I'm not going to."
The Ohio State defensive line has been stout all season, and Bosa is a huge reason why. His stats aren't nearly as impressive as they were a year ago when he earned Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year honors, but offenses are accounting for him like never before.
Saturday's sack of Rudock was an opportunity for him to let out some pent up emotion that had built steadily during the season. He hadn't had a solo sack in more than a month, and after taking down his former teammate didn't even do his trademark celebration shrug. It wasn't on his mind.
"I was just celebrating with my guys who were all super excited about the play and that's the best feeling," Bosa said.
The Instagram post yielded some interesting commentary from Ohio State and Michigan fans, but in typical easygoing Bosa fashion, the defensive end found a way to make light of that with Rudock.
"We messed around with each other, talked about funny rivalry and all the great comments I got on my Instagram post about how I'm classless and how much of a dirtbag I am for messing with one of my friends from high school," Bosa said. "We both had a laugh."
Ohio State scored on its ensuing drive after Rudock went down with the injury, but then Bosa took his destruction of the Michigan offense a step further.
He tipped and intercepted a pass thrown by Wilton Speight, Rudock's replacement, and rumbled 28 yards down the sideline.
Bosa's onslaught of the Wolverines — he also had three other tackles in the game — wasn't enough to earn him his second straight Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year honor (that instead went to Penn State's Carl Nassib, who led the league with 15.5 sacks), but that's OK with him.
He is just happy he finally got to show his complete repertoire of skills on a national stage, and it just so happened to be against Ohio State's biggest rival and one of his former teammates.
"Since the beginning of the year, every time I go out and play I expect to have games like that," Bosa said. "When I don't, I think I'm not playing good enough and I always want to be out there and always want to perform my best. But as long as we're winning, like I always say I'm happy.
"To finally put on a game like that, it feels nice against our rivals and our last game of the regular season when we really needed it."
