Four time Big Ten Championship winner Marcus Williamson is now at the risk of spending years of his life behind bars. On March 23, the former Buckeye safety pleaded guilty to nine counts of robbery committed across Franklin County, Ohio. Williamson was a highly sought recruit and a perennial scholar athlete during his years wearing the scarlet and gray. How did a young man with such a promising career end up on the wrong side of the law? Before we rush to judgements, the key aspects of his case need to be understood.

March & April 2024: There were 9 robberies across banks in Franklin County. All of them followed the same pattern. A man used to approach the teller and pass or show a note demanding money in $20, $50 and $100 denominations. He would be wearing latex gloves and in five of the robberies, it would be implied that he also had a gun. The robber would then leave on foot before getting into a Jeep Compass and driving away. Though not every attempt was successful, in total the robber was able to get away with approximately $22,000 from various banks.

April 24, 2024: Detectives had Williamson as a suspect and were tracking his vehicle. He was stopped a short time after he was seen leaving First Merchants Bank at 5909 N. High St. When police did a search, they found money from the bank in his possession. Williamson was arrested and taken into custody.

May 2024: A Franklin County grand jury indicted Williamson with 25 felony counts. He faced 17 counts of robbery and 8 counts of felony theft. He pleaded not guilty and was held on a $150,000 bond.

March 23, 2025: Williamson changes his plea and accepts committing nine bank robberies across two months. He pleaded guilty to nine counts of robbery. Five of these counts were second-degree felonies and four of them were third-degree felonies. His sentencing is set for June 25 by Franklin County Common Pleas Court Judge Sheryl Munson. Williamson could face more than 40 years in prison.

This is also not Williamson’s first brush with the legal system. Back in August of 2022, Williamson was charged with aggravated kidnapping and robbery in Shelby County, Tennessee. A woman later identified Williamson as the man who forced her to drive to an ATM and withdraw $500.

This timeline clearly paints a portrait of a repeat offender in need of rehabilitation by the state penal system. A casual reader would instantly discount this man as an anti social element to society and would not want anything to do with him. But this is not the complete picture and there is more to the story of Marcus Williamson.

Growing up in central Ohio, Williamson was just like all the other kids. He had dreams of playing football under the bright stadium lights and eventually make it to the NFL. He was a 4-star prospect coming out of high school and was listed among the top 150 players across the nation by scouts. After spending three years at his local public high school, the talented defensive back transferred to the prestigious IMG Academy in Florida for his senior season in 2016.

Williamson joined Ryan Day’s squad in 2017 and was immediately put to the test. He played 10 games for the Buckeyes on his way to a Big Ten title. When he was part of the team, they went on to win their conference four times and reach the national championship game in 2020. He didn’t always get the most amount of playing time. Despite only getting 14 starts, he stayed a Buckeye throughout his entire eligibility, showing rare loyalty at a time when most players were looking out for themselves over the program.

“I’ve always since Pee Wee I’ve considered myself a team player. Sometimes you’ve got to just put your ego aside, put the distractions aside, people in your ear, people in the community back home. Whatever it may be, and just kind of put your best foot forward focus and on the team.” Williamson said in an interview in 2021 after seeing his playing time get reduced as younger players started to take over.

Williamson graduated in December of 2020 with a degree in history. During his time at Columbus, he was a scholar athlete in four out of his five years. This meant he had a cumulative grade point average of 3.00 and above. He was also Academic All-Big Ten Conference in his last two years. All of this reads like the story of a mature and smart student athlete at the cusp of taking his life to the next level. Up till now, Williamson has conducted himself with candor, showing great fealty to the Buckeye program. But this loyalty would not last long. It all came crashing down during the Rose Bowl in 2022.

Williamson goes public against Urban Meyer and the Buckeyes

Williamson was very public about his struggles with mental health during the end of his career. But he was adamant about turning his life around by putting his faith in a higher power.

“I’ve had struggles all throughout college, injuries, personal life,” Williamson said. “I think it’s very easy to lose yourself in that sense. To be able to reclaim my life, reclaim my goals, reclaim my passions, and just start to live life. I think finding that through my spirituality and my connection to something I feel like is higher than me has been huge for my life and where I see it going.”

But before he could achieve that, he would end up doing something that would make him infamous in all of Buckeye fandom. On January 2, 2022, Ohio State was playing against the Utah Utes in the Rose Bowl. It was Williamson’s last year. He was not going to see the gridiron, already being almost completely replaced by younger talent at the position. He still could have travelled with the team to Pasadena. He chose not to, instead ending his football career on his own terms and retiring for “self care.” In an ironic twist, his most famous moment in the sport came when he started tweeting his honest thoughts on his time as a Buckeye.

“As a 17 early enrollee. Urban Meyer told me he’d “ruin my f—- life” if he ever caught me smoking” was one of the many tweets Williamson began to put out during the course of the game.

Williamson also claimed that Urban Meyer put up a photo of Trayvon Martin, a victim of gun violence, wearing a hoodie to tell his players that such clothing will not be permitted within the Woody Hayes Athletic facility.

“My first team meeting. (True story 2017) This photo was presented to us via PowerPoint to institute our rule of ‘no hoods’ in the building,”

“After said meeting — the freshman and myself go to sign the hours of paperwork essentially signing our rights as Americans over to osu and the governing bodies.”

These tweets rocked the football community and Williamson’s parents even called him to tell him to stop. After the fallout, Meyer vehemently denied the claims of using any such picture. But then he eventually admitted that the photo was used, though he was unaware of the context behind it.

“Our team rule was no hats or hoodies or sunglasses of any kind but only in team meetings, just so we could see their eyes and make sure they were paying attention and not asleep,” Meyer explained his reasoning.

Despite the backlash faced by Williamson, there were some who understood the value of his perspective. Former defensive lineman Dre’Mont Jones tweeted: “We need to acknowledge and appreciate Marcus’s time at The OSU. Everyone’s situation and experiences are different. As former Buckeye Athlete’s we should support him and not discredit what he went through by saying what Coach Meyer was or wasn’t. Thanks for sharing”

Williamson could have become an advocate for player safety and their rights. His stellar academic record and his public comments clearly showed that he had the aptitude for it. But struggles with mental health have now led him down a dark path that could potentially see him spend decades in prison.