Any fan of the Ohio football team has certainly noticed a hot new item in the team’s postgame locker room photos and even on head coach Tim Albin's shirt. It’s not a new electrolyte drink or any sort of sponsor; it is a staple of many childhoods across the country. It is, of course, a Hi-C Orange Lavaburst juice box.
The sugary drink is not just a tasty treat for players and coaches but a prop that has sparked some of the best football the Bobcats have played this season.
Brian Smith serves many roles on Ohio’s coaching staff, including associate head coach, offensive coordinator, play-caller and running backs coach. A new title the seasoned coach can add to his resume is the creator of the juice phenomenon inside Ohio’s locker room.
Kent State happened to be Ohio’s first MACtion game of the season. It was played on a cold Wednesday night in Kent in front of 5,662 fans, a number that probably was whittled down to just triple digits as the Bobcats blew out the Golden Flashes 41-0.
“It started going into the Kent State game, just knowing that that would be a midweek evening game,” Smith said. “They had not won a game yet. So it's anticipating not a lot of crowd in the stands … the emphasis for our players was that we had to bring our own energy. We had to bring juice to the game.”
Smith was serious about his coaching point, making a grocery run to get the juice boxes for the offense the day before the game.
“(I) made a run to Target and picked up a bunch of juice boxes,” Smith said. “At our offensive unit meeting on the day of the game, we talked about it again and then showed them all the juice boxes. They all got to bring one to the game, so they were physically bringing their own juice to the game.”
The juice was saved for the postgame celebration and became so popular that Albin made it a team-wide emphasis, giving every player their own juice to bring to the weeknight MACtion games.
“The whole team got in the locker room, and all the offensive guys had their juice boxes out and (were) chanting 'juice,'" Smith said. "I think the defense might have felt left out."
Although it obviously boosted team morale, there might be something truly special within those Hi-C Orange Lavaburst juice boxes, which unlocks something in the entire Ohio team. The Bobcats have been red-hot since starting midweek MACtion games, going 4-0 in games with the juice.
“I think players loved it," Smith said. "I think they loved the emphasis, they loved the prop and I think that they really embraced it. Just the way that our team is, they're a bunch of really good kids that like playing together. They have fun together. You can take something like that and they're gonna run with it and love it.”
Ohio’s offense is averaging 35.5 points a game in those four contests against Kent State, Eastern Michigan, Toledo and Ball State. The defense has been stellar as well, giving up just 9.5 points per game in that stretch.
One player who has especially come through in these midweek MACtion games has been starting quarterback Parker Navarro. The graduate student has had some struggles this season but he has blossomed in recent weeks, punishing teams with his legs through Ohio’s MAC-ruling run game.
In the four-game stretch since MACtion started and the juice was introduced, Navarro ran for 382 yards and nine touchdowns while throwing for 717 yards and three touchdowns, establishing himself as a true dual-threat weapon under center.
“The juice is real, and it's something you can't see, but it's there, and it's tangible,” Navarro said. “What that signifies is the energy and the passion that we have to dig deep (for) and find each game day and bring, and that's everyone on the team, that's that scout team, that’s starters, everyone needs to bring that.”
The juice came at the right time for Ohio, a team that road the success of the last four games to a MAC championship game appearance in a rematch against rivals Miami in Oxford.
The success was truly a result of incredible team football, with all three phases of the team doing their job to grind out huge wins like the 24-7 victory against Toledo in the Glass Bowl, a place where Ohio was 1-16 historically when playing the Rockets on the road.
Another benefit of Ohio's success is the opportunity to accomplish something that hasn’t been done since 1968: winning the MAC championship. Even with a large crowd at Ford Field in Detroit for the final game, the Bobcats will surely bring the juice, physically and metaphorically.
