As the final seconds ticked off the clock on Ohio State’s 20-13 win over Penn State on Saturday, Fox announcer Gus Johnson punctuated the victory and the moment.
“Focused. Determined. Disciplined. THE world-famous Buckeyes win it 20-13, and Ohio State right back in the National Championship picture,” he said.
It was not the first time Johnson had referred to the Buckeyes as “world famous.” In fact, a whole lot of people were pretty tired of hearing the descriptor during his call of the game.
It’s certainly confusing because, unlike the whole “THE Ohio State,” no one else refers to the school or football team as “world famous.” It’s made some fans wonder if Johnson is an OSU alum (he’s not) or if he roots for the Buckeyes (no more or less than any other team, it seems).
Johnson does love his nicknames (Hi, Masarati Marv), but this one in particular seems to annoy viewers, perhaps mostly because it doesn’t seem to make any sense.
There is a reason, however. And it goes back to Olympian Jesse Owens.
During a 2022 visit to Ohio State, Johnson discussed where the “world famous” moniker came from.
“The whole world knew about Jesse and Ohio State,” Johnson said, via Sporting News. “So that’s why when you see me call the game nowadays and you may hear me say, ‘the world-famous Ohio State University. The world-famous Ohio State University.’ That is an ode to him. And it’s something that we can never forget.
“My father, he talked about Jesse almost from the time I could hear and what he did when the world was on the brink of war, how he won those four gold medals in Berlin in front of a bad man who was promoting a bad theory of racial superiorities. Can never forget that. There’s a whole world that found out about Jesse, about Ohio State during that time, showing us that we could beat that dude at his house.”
For Johnson, there’s a deeper meaning to the descriptor than just trying to hype up Ohio State football.
Related in a way, Johnson went out of his way to discuss the legend of No. 44 during Saturday’s OSU-PSU game, which stems from Black running backs Jim Brown, Ernie Davis, and Floyd Little, even though that was only tangentially related to the game he was calling.
The Fox announcer has certain topics that are important to him and he’s going to insert them into the broadcast, one way or another.
So there you go. When Gus is talking about “world-famous Ohio State,” he’s got a reason. Whether or not that reason is good enough to justify the ongoing usage during every game is up to the audience.