He was ready to go that Sept. 22 afternoon in Columbus, which is just down the road from his home in Akron. He slipped on his uniform and trotted into Ohio Stadium and began to warm up, but then, like that, his day was done.
“I hit my foot in the wrong position,” Northwestern running back Tyrell Sutton remembers, “and the next thing you know I was unable to run.”
He could not run on the right ankle he had damaged Sept. 8 against Nevada, and so, in the locker room at Ohio State, he could no longer contain his roiling emotions. So he cried in such anguish that receiver Eric Peterman walked over and hugged him.
“We know you want to go out there and do it. But we’ve just got to play for you,” Peterman says.
Says Sutton: “He’s one of my best friends on the team. To have him right there by my side, I’m grateful. But it was definitely tough.
“If there was one game that stuck out (from the five he eventually missed) it was definitely Ohio State, being back home. Playing against a lot of friends on the opposite team, just going out and playing in front of a hometown crowd was something I really wanted to do. But I’m not going to put my team in jeopardy if I can’t go.”
He wasn’t ready to fully go until the Wildcats played Saturday at Purdue, where he celebrated his return by gaining 72 yards on a dozen carries and taking a dump pass for 19 yards and a first down. He was on the field for 50 plays, an inordinate amount for a performer just back from a long layoff, and ended the game sore but healthy.
All is finally right in the world of Tyrell Sutton as he awaits Iowa’s Saturday visit to Ryan Field, where his workload is sure to increase. But five weeks separated his afternoon in West Lafayette from that one in Columbus and, during them, he was anything but all right. He was instead doomed to ride the roller coaster that is the home of any injured athlete.
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With that injury, he’s essentially ill, and that deprives him of a thing he loves, which is his game. Either condition, the experts tell us, is fertile ground for depression, which is what Sutton battled as his ankle refused to heal.
“If I’m not playing football, everything’s wrong in the world, to me,” he says. “I’ve had so many highs and lows this season, it’s been ridiculous. You’d swear I needed therapy or something.
“I wasn’t able to go through preseason (when he had a bad hamstring). I was depressed there. … I had to keep myself grounded, stay around the coaches a lot, just make sure I didn’t hit that page again. I tend to do that a lot.”
To fill his time, he underwent rehabilitation, attended team meetings and counseled Omar Conteh and Brandon Roberson, who were playing in his place. But this was clearly no easy time for Sutton, a junior with a fire in his belly that is stoked higher than most.
“Finally being an upperclassman, you get a real chance to lead,” Sutton says when asked just how tough his season has been. “Being one of the older guys, you just want to go out there and show guys how it’s done. You want to lead by example, not just by words. Being in one game and maybe a quarter, you get the feeling you kind of let them down.
“It was frustrating because I’m a competitor. Being a competitor, you never want to see someone else in your spot. That’s nothing against Omar and Robes … [they] stepped up and ran with it. But as a competitor, I want to be out there every single chance I have for my teammates. That’s all I really wanted.”
Now, at last, he has what he wants, which is why all is again right in his world. It is also why, on Monday, he can finally say:
“I definitely have a chance to make some memories with the seniors on this team. Especially (wide receiver) Tonjua [Jones]. He was the first person I met at this school. I owe it to him for being the great friend that he is and being a great leader. I just want to go out and step it up for him and make sure he gets a great sendoff.”
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* UP NEXT: Iowa at Northwestern, 11 a.m. Sat., ESPN2