Who hit first? Former Ohio State Buckeyes recall punches, pinches and big hits vs. the hated Wolverines

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Chimdi Chekwa’s first memory of The Game begins with a frothing running back staring down at him.

Back in Chekwa’s freshman year in 2007, in a game the Buckeyes won, 14-3, the former Buckeye defensive back thought he had a free shot at Wolverines quarterback Chad Henne. That is, until Mike Hart noticed the blitzing Chekwa and hammered him to the ground.

“GET UP!” Hart yelled at Chekwa. “GET UP!”

“He stood over me so I couldn’t,” Chekwa recalled this week. “… I had to try to grab his leg and dump him so I could get up.”

Hart’s hit-and-holler is just one example of the intense emotion that bleeds onto the field at the Horseshoe or the Big House every year.

When Michigan plays Ohio State, blockers hit harder, defensive backs cling tighter to receivers’ jerseys. And “there’s a different level of emotion that comes with every play,” Chekwa said. “It’s almost like everyone is trying to establish themselves as the alpha during the game.”

Former OSU defensive back Tyler Everett says that emotion skews one-sided in his experience. Everett, who played at OSU from 2002-2005, said the Wolverines talked more trash and took more cheap shots than his Buckeyes.

He remembers UM players “accidentally” bumping into his OSU teammates during warm-ups trying to spark a pregame skirmish. They punched and pinched the Buckeyes at the bottom of player pileups. Anything to knock OSU off its game.

“It’s almost like the recipe of a weak man,” Everett said. “They know they can’t beat you, so they try to beat you in other ways where you actually beat yourself.”

Among the loudest Wolverines during Everett’s era: wide receiver Braylon Edwards, who totaled 3,541 receiving yards and 39 touchdowns during four seasons in Ann Arbor before being drafted third overall by the Browns in 2005.

“He talked so much trash,” former Buckeye defensive back Nate Salley said this week. And on one play in 2003, in a game Michigan won 35-21, Salley decided he’d heard enough.

Salley considers that game one of the best and worst of his OSU career. On one hand, Edwards caught seven passes for 130 yards and two touchdowns – including one where he broke Salley’s tackle en route to the end zone – that day. On the other, Salley laid “one of the top two or three hits of my career” against Edwards on a reverse play.

The tackle left such a mark that Edwards brought it up when he saw Salley on an NFL field years later.

“I’m glad Coach didn’t call that reverse,” Edwards told Salley.

Edwards never forgot Salley’s hit, just like Chekwa never forgot Hart’s. From the moment Hart let him stand, Chekwa said he was determined to hit Wolverine just as hard with just as little warning.

In 2009, he saw his chance. Chekwa was defending UM receiver Greg Matthews, whom Chekwa had known since high school (both players came from Florida). Matthews was blocking hard for a run. Chekwa offered little resistance.

“Receivers, if you show them you’re not going as hard, they’ll let up,” Chekwa said.

Sure enough, Matthews relaxed. And as soon as he did, Chekwa rammed him into the ground and the former high school rivals tussled on the ground afterward.

Former OSU coach Jim Tressel always urged the Buckeyes to avoid such moments, but Chekwa didn’t care. He wanted his Mike Hart moment. Over 10 years later, he chuckles at the memory.

“I made them pay for their sins,” Chekwa said.

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