Clarett, Taylor faced tough times after Fiesta Bowl.
Columbus -- The play lasted six, maybe seven seconds. Fifteen strides took Miami safety Sean Taylor from the end zone, where he had intercepted a Craig Krenzel pass, to the 29-yard line, where he suddenly found Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett ripping the football from his right arm.
"Clarett has stolen the ball," ABC analyst Dan Fouts shouted. "Maurice Clarett with the play of the game perhaps."
That third-quarter turn of events will come alive again this week as one of the critical moments from Ohio State's 31-24 double overtime victory over Miami in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl, the game that gave the Buckeyes their first national title in 34 years. The long-awaited rematch between Ohio State and Miami takes place Saturday in Ohio Stadium, seven years and eight months later.
That's a long time -- long enough for Clarett to have already come through Ohio State a second time as part of his second chance. It was a surreal reunion for a player whose one-time accusations could have brought the Ohio State football program down if an NCAA investigation had found enough evidence.
"I think most people in the university community believed in the notion of second chances," said John Bruno, an Ohio State professor and the faculty representative to the athletic department, "that a young guy made a couple of significant mistakes, paid the price for them and has changed considerably."
So Clarett, whose NFL career flamed out in training camp with the Denver Broncos in 2005, is back in football after 31/2 years in prison. His second act in the game is scheduled to get under way when the minor-league Omaha Nighthawks of the six-team United Football League begin their season on Sept. 24.
Sean Taylor, a former All-Pro safety with the Washington Redskins, is dead, shot in his own bedroom on Nov. 26, 2007. He died the next day. The trial for the defendants accused of murdering Taylor during a robbery attempt has been continued several times and is now scheduled for Oct. 19.
Clarett was once accused of a gun crime, sentenced in September 2006 on robbery and weapons charges, then released to a halfway house in April of this year.
Taylor was once accused of a gun crime, an aggravated assault charge in 2005 that was later dropped after a long legal battle. That past had nothing to do with his murder, his friends saying Taylor had changed his life long before a gunshot ended it.
It's Clarett whose second chance lives on as fans from Miami and Ohio State revisit his most memorable night as a player. OSU senior linebacker Brian Rolle, for one, said he watched a replay of the 2003 Fiesta Bowl in recent weeks, and once again shook his head at Clarett's play on Taylor.
"I was like, 'Man, he's a beast,' " Rolle said. "Nobody else on that field would have done that. That lets you know what kind of player he was."
Like many Buckeyes, Rolle ran across Clarett before he left for Omaha, Neb., as Clarett was re-admitted to Ohio State for summer classes and worked out regularly in OSU's weight room. Buckeyes coach Jim Tressel, who helped get Clarett back on campus, also wrote a letter to the courts on Clarett's behalf before a judge ruled Clarett would be able to leave Ohio for a tryout in Omaha.
"We all make mistakes, and some are different mistakes than others," Tressel told reporters in July as Clarett returned to classes. "There are always consequences for whatever the mistake is, but if you take care of that, usually the world is a forgiving world."
Clarett seemed to find that in his limited interactions with current players over the summer, some of whom remembered him from their younger days as Ohio State fans.
"He was my hero when I was in eighth grade watching him win a championship," OSU senior linebacker Ross Homan said. "He's an unbelievable person, and he really gave us words of wisdom on how to approach the season."
"He's in a situation where he's gone though a lot of things in his life, and you learn from everything," said OSU receiver Dane Sanzenbacher, who said he spoke with Clarett a few times. "He seems like he never left. He's a nice guy, and I don't have a bad thing to say about him."
Clarett wouldn't talk about his past when meeting with reporters in Omaha for five minutes last week. But Tressel understands what the past has done for Clarett's attitude toward football.
"I think it's probably something that he thought about and that he missed and that he knows it's short-lived," Tressel said.
Remembering that play from the Fiesta Bowl proves how tragically true that can be.