Happy Monday!

After an eventful and emotional week of Ohio State news, we head into the week of the 2022 Spring Game.

Here’s what I’m thinking about.

I was at all but two of Dwayne Haskins’ appearances in an Ohio State uniform.

In 2017, I wasn’t at the Rutgers game where he checked in completing 50% of his passes for 47 yards and a touchdown in a 56-0 win, and I wasn’t at the Nebraska game, where he completed all three of his pass attempts for 25 yards, along with a four-yard rush in a 56-14 win.

But I saw everything else: his first 14-yard completion to C.J. Saunders against Army, his firs 38-yard touchdown pass to Rashod Berry against UNLV, that comeback he led against Michigan in Ann Arbor, his first record-breaking start against Oregon State, his loss to Purdue where he attempted 73 passes, his 499-yard performance against Northwestern in the Big Ten Championship and his send-off against Washington in the Rose Bowl.

Everyone has their own specific moment to where they thought the Haskins of 2018 became THE Haskins of 2018, and all of those answers are right to a sense. And my answer is not a shocker.

I remember what it was like to experience that comeback win against Penn State from press row.

Haskins had already shown up to an extent, averaging nearly 300 yards passing in his first four games — including a matchup against No. 15 TCU in Dallas — completing 75.7% of his passes with 16 touchdowns compared to one interception.

But that night in Beaver Stadium was the redshirt sophomore’s first taste of adversity, the first true road game atmosphere.

It wasn’t easy, completing 22 of 39 passes for 270 yards with three touchdowns, an interception and a sack against the No. 9 team in the country.

That’s not what people remember about this game. It was that final touchdown drive.

Starting with the ball at his own 4-yard line with 4:34 to go, trailing by five points, Haskins went to work. He dumped the ball off to J.K. Dobbins on a screen, taking it 35 yards for some breathing room, as both Dobbins and Mike Weber used runs to get the ball in Penn State territory.

Getting to the Penn State 24 after a 14-yard pass from Haskins to Parris Campbell and a 5-yard run from Dobbins, Haskins faced the moment of the game: third down with five yards to go with 2:03 left.

The next play wasn’t a play for Haskins to show off. He took what the Penn State defense was giving him and let the receiver do the work.

He took the snap, pitching it out to K.J. Hill in the flat, who sped through multiple tacklers for the 24-yard touchdown, giving the Buckeyes a one-point lead it would keep, with the help of a sack and a tackle-for-loss by Chase Young on the final Nittany Lions’ drive.

After that point, Haskins became Haskins, with five 400-yard performances, six games with at least three passing touchdowns, including six against both Indiana and Michigan, tying the single-game record for the Buckeyes.

He was good in his first four games. Very good, even. But that Penn State game seemed to wake up the record-breaker inside, the quarterback who would set the tone for the Ohio State offense even to this day.

Read the rest of the column in The Horseshoe Lounge.