Ohio State football: Former Buckeyes meet in CFL matchup

When the Saskatchewan Roughriders travel to Commonwealth Stadium Saturday night to take on the Edmonton Elks in a week two Canadian Football League game, there is a good chance a couple of former Ohio State football teammates will butt heads.

Receiver Jalin Marshall and safety Damon Webb were teammates on Ohio State’s 2014 national champions. Marshall, a former high school quarterback from Middletown, was an integral part of that offense as a do-it-all H-back and punt returner. Webb was a true freshman who appeared in nine games and made three tackles. Marshall is now in his first season with Edmonton, while Webb is in his second with the Roughriders.

When Marshall decided to forego his final two seasons of eligibility with the Buckeyes, he went undrafted and was signed as a free agent by the New York Jets. He began the 2016 season as the team’s number four receiver and finished the year with a respectable fourteen catches. He often handled kickoff and punt return duties in the ten games he appeared.

Unfortunately, he ran afoul of the league’s policy on PEDs in the offseason and was suspended for the first four games of the 2017 season. Upon his reinstatement, Marshall was cut by the Jets but re-signed to their practice squad. He did not appear in a game that season and was eventually released by the team.

He joined the Orlando Apollos of the Alliance of American Football and played well during the league’s short-lived existence in the spring of 2019. After the AAF folded in the middle of their first season, Marshall was signed by the Oakland Raiders only to be released just a few days later.

A month later he was signed by the CFL’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats. He appeared in nine games over two seasons (the CFL canceled the 2020 season due to COVID) and caught ten passes for 159 yards. Marshall joined Edmonton as a free agent in February. In their opening-week loss to the BC Lions, he had one catch for sixteen yards but returned six kickoffs for an eighteen-yard average and three punts for 37 yards.

Webb’s route to football in the Great White North was not nearly as circuitous as his former scarlet and gray teammate. Like Marshall, Webb went undrafted and was signed as a free agent. He spent all of 2018 on the practice squad for the Tennessee Titans.

After being released by the Titans the following summer, he was out of football until he joined Saskatchewan in the spring of 2020. Webb had originally signed a contract with Ottawa but discovered the Roughriders actually owned his negotiating rights.

To make ends meet during the canceled 2020 season, the Detroit native worked in an Amazon warehouse among other things. Webb found himself on the Saskatchewan practice squad to start the 2021 season, but was eventually promoted to the active roster and returned a fumble for a touchdown against the BC Lions (see that here at the 7:47 of the highlights) a few weeks later.

He made his first career start in late October against Calgary and got his first career interception (you can watch that here at the 5:25 mark of the highlights). He finished the season with 34 tackles in ten games. A very narrow loss to Winnipeg, who was led by Steubenville and Cincinnati Bearcat product Zach Collaros, in the Western Conference Final, denied Webb a chance to play for the Grey Cup. He has begun this season on the Roughriders’ active roster but did not have a tackle in their week one win over Hamilton.

The list of former Ohio State football players who had successful careers after deciding to take off to the Great White North (80’s pop culture reference there, folks) is a long one. It includes 1958 Rose Bowl hero Don Sutherin, who won seven Grey Cup titles as a player and coach and is a Canadian Football Hall of Fame member.

All-Americans Ted Provost and Jim Stillwagon from OSU’s 1968 national champions. Rob Murphy, an All-American lineman on the 1997 Rose Bowl team, won a Grey Cup with the BC Lions in 2006 and was named the league’s most outstanding lineman that same season. In 2017, receiver DeVier Posey helped Toronto win their 17th Grey Cup and caught the longest touchdown pass in the game’s history (100 yards) on his way to capturing the contest’s MVP honors (should I spell it honours for this article?).

Jalin Marshall and Damon Webb hope to add their names to the list of Ohio State football players who have had successful CFL careers. You can watch their matchup Saturday night at 9:30 Eastern time on ESPN-plus.