COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The way Ohio State’s secondary coaches talk, they have plenty of players to fill spots vacated by the departure of their 2024 national championship defense.
The challenge this month is figuring out where to put them.
Secondary coach Tim Walton said “everybody’s growing,” and the playing time will be sorted out on a week-to-week basis.
Safety Lathan Ransom, cornerback Denzel Burke and nickel back Jordan Hancock were all selected in the NFL draft in April.
They were part of a unit that led the nation in total defense (254.6 yards per game) and points allowed per game (12.9) while coming in third in yards allowed through the air (167 per game) and 18th in passing efficiency.
Senior Davison Igbinosun returns at cornerback while All-American junior Caleb Downs is back at safety, where he was regarded as one of the top players in the country last season.
He was voted a captain last week, but Igbinosun revealed he already had another moniker for the Georgia native.
“I call him coach Downs, actually,” Igbinosun said. “He just knows so much football. So he’s a natural leader in that sense.”
The staff has some experienced options to step in, a group that includes cornerbacks Jermaine Mathews Jr. and Lorenzo Styles Jr.
Mathews played more than 300 snaps at cornerback last season while Styles saw more than 100 at nickel, but both have the ability to play inside or out.
At safety, Jaylen McClain and Malik Hartford are competing, though it sounds like both could see the field depending on matchups.
“Guys just keep growing,” Walton said. “We don’t know any of that stuff yet, you know what I mean? We’re still kind of in training camp mode a little bit as we’re going, and by next week, we’ll start trying to narrow stuff down. But you know how we do it here: Everybody competes. Every day is an open forum to compete for stuff.”
Adding to the intrigue is Downs’ ability to play any of the three safety spots. He has shown comfort playing in the center, in the box or in the slot, meaning Walton and safeties coach Matt Guerrieri are not simply trying to figure out who can play static roles around him but how his skills can set up others to thrive in different spots.
“Where are we able to deploy him? What’s the attack of the offense?” Guerrieri said. “You know, that’s part of it, too, is like, how are they trying to build offensive structure?
“Where can we put him to be able to impact the game? So a year ago you’re able to see him in the deep part of the field, the intermediate blitzing, doing different things like that, and then in the offseason we were able to say, ‘Hey, what does Caleb do really well?”
For his part, Downs said he had “not a clue” where he might line up when the third-ranked Buckeyes open the season against No. 1 Texas on Aug. 30, but he also didn’t sound worried about it.
“Just continue to learn how to see the games from multiple views,” he said of his approach. “See it from 15 yards, see it from 5 yards, see it from 4 yards, see it from 8 yards. I feel like that’s a big thing that not a lot of people talk about, just being able to see the game from different viewpoints to allow yourself to play fast in any position.”
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