A Story Bigger Than Football
Redemption opens like a familiar football story — with helmets, stadium lights, and the pressure to win — but quickly clarifies its real focus: Jesus changing lives inside The Ohio State Buckeyes’ program.
Available through The Wonder Project on Amazon Prime, this docuseries follows an ongoing spiritual revival that can’t be measured on a scoreboard. Behind it are two unlikely executive producers: Marlee and Matt Benson, a husband-and-wife duo who stepped into filmmaking because they believed the message mattered.
When Marlee shared how Redemption became a reality on the Cedarville Stories podcast, she made one thing clear: She and Matt didn’t start as film professionals. Marlee is a 2021 Cedarville University graduate with a degree in communication, and she and Matt are simply people who love sports and Jesus. They were surprised to find themselves telling a story so much bigger than their own experiences.
The docuseries idea was sparked at church. Marlee and Matt listened as former Buckeye tight end Gee Scott Jr. shared his testimony, and the idea arrived with clarity. They needed to share what God has been doing in and through these players.
Marlee and Matt didn’t have a roadmap, so they prayed. They prayed when they felt unqualified, when the logistics looked impossible, and when the responsibility of representing real people and real faith felt heavy.
Then, the prayers started turning into tangible steps. A production company came alongside them. Funding followed in the form of hundreds of thousands of dollars that seemed out of reach for two newcomers. And as the project grew, it gained the backing of former Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Tim Tebow, lending his credibility and support to a story centered on Christ rather than fame.
Even with resources, the hardest work stayed relational. Marlee and Matt had to tell the stories of multiple players who stood for Christ without flattening them into slogans. They had to earn trust deep enough for players to share truthfully, not carefully. They chose transparency because the message mattered more than the optics: Jesus transforms lives, and that transformation gives hope in the middle of pressure, performance, and public scrutiny.
As the story took shape, Marlee kept noticing how the players talked about prayer: not as a lever to pull for wins but as a way to stay close to God when life doesn’t go the way they want. Gee Scott Jr. puts words to it near the end of the series: People sometimes treat prayer like a path to a national championship, but God doesn’t promise that. What He promises, as Romans 8:28 says, is to work all things together for good for those who love Him, even when the “all things” include delays, doubts, and hard conversations.
By the time Redemption was finished, Marlee realized the story had been working on her, too, reshaping how she saw faith in the middle of pressure and performance. Watching players talk about Christ’s joy shook her out of spiritual routine. Their excitement renewed her own faith and reminded her that God still changes people in the present tense.
That’s the quiet thread running through the whole project. Two fans stepped forward with open hands, not because they were experts, but because they were willing storytellers for God’s glory. They pursued excellence, faced obstacles honestly, and kept praying through every unknown, driven by the belief that if even one person met Jesus through this story, it would be worth it. And in the end, Marlee and Matt watched God create hope on the screen through testimonies that kept echoing long after the credits rolled.
Posted in: Podcast