Jaylen McClain lined up on the edge, and nobody blocked him.
The Ohio State safety wasn't accustomed to the blitz call, but he made the best of it against Indiana. The defending national champions passed up a 45-yard field goal attempt and kept quarterback Josh Hoover on the field on fourth down, trailing 13-7 in the third quarter.
McClain blitzed, struck Hoover's blindside, and rocked him so hard he coughed up the ball. Ohio State recovered, and the Buckeyes won 19-15, snapping the nation's longest winning streak at 22 games.
It was the first sack and forced fumble of McClain's three-year career.
Twenty-four years earlier, his father made a similar play: an interception against Virginia Tech on the first snap of the Hokies' third overtime possession, sealing a 50-42 upset. It was senior Maurice McClain's first interception of his career after returning to the field just two weeks earlier from a broken leg.
"It was a long recovery back," Jaylen said of his father. "... When the play came to him, he just had to make that play."
So did Jaylen.
New generation, same coaches
Fate can be funny. Cyclical, even. Syracuse's defensive backs coach in 2002 was Tim Walton. Matt Patricia was one of Syracuse's graduate assistants working with the scout team. Now Patricia is Ohio State's defensive coordinator, and Walton is Jaylen McClain's secondary coach.
"[Patricia] is the same guy that he was back then," Maurice McClain told CBS Sports. "He was the guy that when he saw a player down, he'd pick him back up. He was hugging guys. That's just him."
Walton "had a lot more fire to him" in 2002, Maurice said. These days, Maurice describes him as "more like a teacher, if anything. He's a life coach."
Carrying the load
The Buckeyes may need more of what Jaylen and his coaches gave them in Bloomington two weeks ago.
Ohio State might be without its starting quarterback for the rest of the season. Julian Sayin injured his throwing shoulder in the fourth quarter at Indiana and is out indefinitely. Coach Ryan Day had not named a starter as of Tuesday for Saturday night's game at USC, with a decision looming between freshman Luke Fahey, who finished the Indiana game, and Tavien St. Clair. Both could play Saturday, Day said.
Whoever plays, they'll try to become the fourth Ohio State quarterback since 2000 to win his first career start in a true road game, and the first since C.J. Stroud in 2021.
Sayin's loss puts more pressure on the Buckeyes' other players, including Heisman Trophy frontrunner Jeremiah Smith, and on a rebuilt defense with eight new starters.
"We all have to step up, coaches, players. And what does that mean?" Day told reporters this week. "Well, we've got to be on our game more and more. I mean, the margin for error certainly has tightened up. There's no question."
The final month of the regular season leaves little room for a slump in the Big Ten title race and the push for the College Football Playoff. No. 2 Ohio State (6-1, 4-0 Big Ten) has won 13 straight regular-season conference games, the longest active streak in FBS, and its only loss came 24-23 in an epic fourth-quarter breakdown at Texas in September. The road isn't easy. The Buckeyes visit USC on Halloween and host Oregon on Nov. 7.
Interestingly enough, Jaylen's recruitment ran through both of the next two opponents. His father said he first wanted to commit to USC, but the Trojans took another player from California. Oregon also went another direction. Ohio State, Maurice said, was the school "he really wanted," and "it opened up to him at the end."
USC (6-2, 3-2) is coming off a 24-7 loss at Wisconsin in which it ran for minus-17 yards, but Day called the Trojans "as talented a team as I've seen on film."
The burden now shifts to a defense Patricia has rebuilt for a second straight season.
His first Ohio State defense allowed 9.3 points and 219.1 yards per game in 2025, the lowest marks in FBS since Alabama in 2011. Then eight starters left, including Caleb Downs, Arvell Reese and Sonny Styles.
The Buckeyes entered their bye week allowing 13.4 points per game, tied for fifth nationally, and a nation-best 5.2 yards per pass attempt. None of their three October opponents scored more than 15 points on offense.
"It puts a little bit more pressure on the defense because we don't want to have that much pressure on the quarterback," McClain said. "But the spirits are very high. I feel like we're headed in the right direction."
Saturday might be the stiffest test yet for McClain and the secondary. Lincoln Riley's USC offense throws for 303.6 yards per game, second in the Big Ten behind only Ohio State, and quarterback Jayden Maiava has thrown a touchdown pass in 13 straight games.
"I would say this offense stresses you in a lot of different areas," Patricia told reporters. "Sometimes we see offenses that maybe stress you in a couple areas. I feel he does an excellent job of stressing the field horizontally and then obviously being able to push the ball downfield vertically. And he does a really good job of understanding when to do that."
His turn to lead
McClain will be counted on to lead. He played alongside Downs, the defense's leader and 2025 Thorpe Award winner, last season. Before Downs left for the NFL, he told McClain to "take that next step," McClain said.
He has. Through seven games, the junior has 32 tackles, two interceptions, four pass breakups, a sack and a forced fumble. More importantly, he has played his best against the toughest opponents. He forced a turnover in all three of Ohio State's games against ranked opponents: interceptions at Texas and Iowa, then the strip-sack at Indiana. This week, he was named a semifinalist for the Thorpe Award, which Downs won a year ago.
"I feel as though he's the same player. It's just that now he's being seen, you know," Maurice said of his son. "I always said that when I watched Caleb Downs at Alabama, I always told people they had the same type of game. But now it's just that people actually had an opportunity to see him play."
Like their father, Jaylen McClain's younger brothers also play defense: KJ is a safety at Tennessee and Cameron is a defensive end at Seton Hall Prep.
Playing defense and making an impact in big moments runs in the family.
"It's cool to score touchdowns," said Jaylen, "but the dark side is better."
