Running Back Concerns for the Buckeyes?
Ohio State may have one of the deepest running back rooms in the country, but are there still reasons for concern?
Tony Gerdeman and Tom Orr discuss the Buckeyes’ running back situation, including the injury histories throughout the room, how Carlos Locklyn can manage a deep group, whether the backs can get into a rhythm while sharing carries, and who Ohio State can trust in short-yardage situations.
The discussion includes Bo Jackson, Isaiah West, Ja'Kobi Jackson, Legend Bey, Turbo Rogers, Favour Akih, and comparisons to past Buckeye running back rotations featuring TreVeyon Henderson, Quinshon Judkins, J.K. Dobbins, Mike Weber, Trey Sermon, Chip Trayanum, Dallan Hayden, and others.
00:00 — Intro from the Schottenstein Center
00:18 — BuckeyeInsiders.com is live
01:04 — Concern No. 1: Running back health
02:14 — Why depth helps protect against injuries
03:40 — What happens if Ohio State has to go deep down the depth chart?
05:22 — Concern No. 2: Can the backs get into a groove?
05:55 — Lessons from past running back rotations
07:54 — Why this rotation cannot just be a set batting order
09:54 — Why communication and buy-in matter
11:20 — Could anyone get 20 carries in a game?
12:49 — Fresh legs vs. rhythm in the backfield
13:08 — Concern No. 3: Short-yardage answers
14:05 — Who can become Ohio State’s goal-line option?
16:10 — Final thoughts and listener questions
16:33 — BuckeyeInsiders.com and wrap-up
What is your biggest concern with Ohio State’s running back room this season? Drop your thoughts in the comments.
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Visit BuckeyeInsiders.com to become a member and join the conversation.
Speaker 1: Hello, everybody, Welcome to the buck Eye Weekly Podcast. I'm
Tony Gerdaman here as always with Tom Wartyle. How's it going, Tony.
Speaker 2: We're here at the Shottenstein Center to talk a little
bit of.
Speaker 3: Ohio State football. Why I oh football facilities closed today?
I don't know.
Speaker 1: No, we're here. We can. We've done some basketball talking.
Now I just want to while we're here, let's talk
some football. But first of all, so let's talk buck
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of the sale job for you. But let's talk about
some concerns that I have about the Oio State running backs.
He called me a coward for having these concerns. These
are my concerns. These are concerns I'd have if if
these are my running backs, like if I was the
coach of the running the OIC running backs, per se,
if I was the head coach. My first concern here, Tom,
is that there's a lot of guys in this room.
There's some good depth, there's some talents. They've all been injured,
They've all dealt with injuries. We didn't see Isaiah West
or Bo Jackson this spring. They missed most of their
senior years. So Isaiah West arrived in Ohio's stay with
an injury legend bab missed the last couple of weeks
of practice. Jacoby Jackson has been injured for much of
his career. Uh and Tamo Rodgers has been in and
out of the lineup, did not play last year. Favor
Racky is deep well, No, favor Racky was injured in
the season opener of his senior year. And uh and
so this is something where yeah, you like all of
the individual parts, but you look at him like you're like,
there's there's some concern there, Tom.
Speaker 2: I think on a case by case basis, that's absolutely legitimate.
It is perfectly reasonable to look at that and go, boy,
I don't know if point finger at any individual guy
if he's going to make it through the season because
he's been banged up at points in the pat switch.
That feels like that's kind of part and parcel of
being a running back at this level. But it's it
is also you have seen you can point to specific
stuff with each of those guys. I will remind you
we did do a show not that long ago about
how this might be the deepest Ohios date running back room.
Speaker 3: So here's the thing.
Speaker 2: On an individual, case by case basis absolutely a legitimate concern,
a hund.
Speaker 3: Up set legitimate.
Speaker 2: You would need like a biblical plague of injuries in
the running back room, which has happened. Like I can
remember some of the early two thousands Iowa teams where
it was just like they're on their sixth running back somehow,
and it's like this is like faster than spinal tap,
like your drummers somehow. But they you would have to
have that kind of a thing to get to burn through.
All of these guys are you gonna have injuries. Of course,
you have every juries like you go through a lot.
I mean trey Van Henderson, when Trevan Henderson was at
Ohios Date had seasons where he missed half the year.
I mean, it's rare that you have a guy who's
just fully healthy and you're starting running back all season.
But the fact that you've got as many guys as
you have will probably help keep guys healthy limit some
of that wear and tear.
Speaker 3: But also it's a little bit of insurance.
Speaker 2: Where if this guy goes down, or even if these
two guys go down, you do have other options.
Speaker 1: Because the seasons where there have been injuries when you've
been down at the end of the line running Chip
Trainham who came to Io State to play a linebacker
and a miracle, but Xavier Johnson, who has played everywhere
and I faint one of the great all time role
players in Ohio State history. But not necessarily the guy
that you think on day one is going to be
the guy at the end of the season trying to
beat Georgia or Michigan or something like that. So if
that does happen this year, there are more options. But
at that point, if you're down to the bottom. I
don't want to say bottom of the barrel, bottom of
the depth chart. You're talking like a Turbo Rodgers. Favor
Acky playing for favorite key is through reshirt this year,
although that doesn't no longer no longer really exists.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1: If everybody's a five for five, so the plans are
down the road for him. Could he do it? I mean,
Dallan Hayden did it as a true freshman, stepped up
in a great way, but then was not necessarily good
enough to play much after that. So I do think
I do agree that there is depth here, but I
also it's not even an opinion. It's just facts, cool
and the running back health over time and through their histories.
The second concern I have here is I guess about
the depth because with so much depth, and you've got
guys that you want to play. We know Carlos Lockton
is going to play bo Jackson. We know that he
loves Isaiah West and is going to try to play
isa West as much as he can. They brought Jacoby
Jackson over to play. We know Legend Bay is going
to play. So a concern here is getting guys into
a groove. And remember when it would be Dobbins and
Mike Weber, they would each get a series and it
was like.
Speaker 2: Very two thousand and eighteen.
Speaker 3: Did JK. Dobbins season right?
Speaker 1: And it's like this team can't run? And it wasn't
because nobody could really get into a groove. And that's
kind of my my concern here is just the inability
to get into a groove. Now, we've seen Trevion Anderson
quinch On Judkins operate just fine in that. I don't
know that that was never was that ever an issue
last year? I don't know. I don't They would pull
Bo Jackson now after he got them inside like the
five yard liners ten yard line, and then they would
struggle to move after that.
Speaker 3: Uh huh.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, And that's and Bo Jackson one hundred and
seventy nine carries last year, six touchdowns.
Speaker 3: CJ.
Speaker 2: Donaldson ninety six carries, so about half as many carries,
ten touchdowns, almost twice as many touchdowns. So that was
sort of a situational thing where it felt like they
were just gonna use CJ.
Speaker 3: Donaldson as a goal line back.
Speaker 2: I don't know that you're gonna see that situation this year,
because I think Bo Jackson is going to be bigger, stronger,
a little more. You know, the goal is obviously for
him to be able to break that one more tackle
or you know, run through that one more arm tackle,
or keep his feet to get through to the end
zone in those kind of situations. But that's always a
little bit of a question anytime. You know, the rhythm
of the game is one of those things that guys,
guys will talk about and fans kind of go, does
that really matter? And you keep hearing it from players,
so it sure seems like it matters, and he keep
hearing it from coaches. You know, the easy answer here
is that, well, it was just because Tony Alfred didn't
rotate them correctly and they didn't use them correctly.
Speaker 3: And you know, this is Carlos Laughlin.
Speaker 2: He has a different probably view on some things than
Tony Alfred did.
Speaker 3: I don't know that.
Speaker 2: I don't know that I would really put that on
Tony Alfred, that that could be just those two guys,
Mike Weber and JK.
Speaker 3: Doallins from JK.
Speaker 2: Dobbins was the guy Capitol G, Capitol G, Capital T,
Capital G like he was in twenty seventeen and twenty nineteen.
Really for long stretches this season, he was great. He
didn't necessarily necessarily adapt well because I remember talking, I
think it was Mike Weber who during that season said,
when you're sitting, then you feel like you've got to
do something, when you go out there and you're trying
to hit a home run at a time when like
sometimes you just got to shoot a single through the
five point five hole, Like you can't try and hit
a home run every single time. But they were sort
of pressing and trying to do too much. Some of
that may be how they were used in terms of
rotation and how that was communicated to them, but some
of that may also be the player. So you've got
different players, you've got a different coach, So maybe this
is maybe this is a problem, Maybe this is not
as much of a problem depending on just the people involved.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and maybe it was a game play thing and
they really had just those two guys. That's not the
case anymore. So there's no clean Well, you play a series.
You play a series, right because you're not going to
go an entire quarter without playing bojacks, So it forces
you to be more. You've got to cut it up.
You've got to figure these things out. You can't just
let the game dictate who plays and can just sit
back and you know, just I don't need to do
any coaching or you know, I don't need to decide
who goes in because you're up next, and it's like
the lineup was set, I give it to the up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is this is not a spring training game
where you know that you're starting right fielder is going
to play the first four innings and he's going to go.
Speaker 1: And it's not a bad anymore. Yeah, you know, this
is something where you change up the order and so
you've got to stay much more on ball. And I
think that's that's one of the things that when you
are changing things up, did you give a guy enough
of an opportunity? Did you let him get his feet
wet and warm? And yet you know, like change of
pace is always a good thing as well, you know,
so there's it's just a it's a balance, as Ryan
Days says, you know, that's the art of coaching, and
I'm sure Carlos Lockton will say something similar. And also
like you know, it's everybody should be ready to go
on any opportunity any you shouldn't need to get warm.
But it is a thing. It may not be a
I don't know if it's quantifiable or you know, how
you define it, but it's it's a real thing, and
you've seen it JK. Dobbins. Taking him off the field
is not a good thing, and keeping him on the
field is a good thing. And you saw him get
better and better, like the two thousand yard season in
twenty nineteen. So I mean that was a lot of carries.
I think three hundred carries. There's there's some some good
things that come from more carries. But I think they're
all talented enough they can make their marks and how
they do it. But what each of those guys be like, Man,
I'd cheer like seventeen carries.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think that the nature of a competitor
is that you want seventeen carries Like that's these role
guys who have always been the best player and every
team they've ever been on before they got to Ohio State,
and so now you get you know, maybe not Jakobe Jackson,
but ever you know, because just because he's played on
other high level college teams and all the other guys
You've always been the best player in your high school team,
so you've.
Speaker 3: Always been the bell cow running back.
Speaker 2: So now that's an adjustment, and it's really kind of
a matter of communicating to the players. Okay, this is
why we're splitting carries. I know, you want to carry
the ball seventeen tied. He also wants to carry ball seventeen,
so does he And ultimately you got to throw the
ball to Jeremia Smith. Everyone's will that you can't give
four guys seventeen carries a game. So it's up to
Carlos Laughlin to communicate to those guys. Hey, look, the
twenty twenty four season, Travion Henderson probably wanted to carry
the ball seventeen times. Quinch On Judkins probably wanted to
carry the ball seventeen times. I think Judkins may have
done that once or twice, maybe during the course of
the season. I don't think Travion got to those numbers
at all. But what was the end result of that.
The end result of that was by the end of
the season, Trayvon Henderson's his legs are still fresh enough
that he can go seventy five yards in a screen
against Texas and Quinjohn Judkins can score three to three right,
three touchdowns against Notre Dame in the first half or
the early in the second half of that National Championship game.
There's a real direct benefit to that as a player.
If you can communicate that to the guys and get.
Speaker 3: Them to buy in, that probably goes a long way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Travion Henderson's season high in carries was twelve that
year and now he was against Notre Dame. Quinn Shawn's
season high was seventeen, and that was against Oregon. He
had fifteen and a couple of fourteens, and those numbers
are all topped by Bo Jackson in terms of carrieres
in the game. Had he hit a couple of twenty
carry games. I wonder based on this, maybe we said
some maybe I'll do an over undershow we'll do an
over under show, because I don't know. I don't know
that you'll see a twenty carry game from anybody this year.
I don't know that you should. I think there's enough
talent on hand that unless you've got a Trey Sermon
type of situation, he gets still with Western.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well, and that was I mean, that was
a real outlier. That was and that was one where
we're sitting in that.
Speaker 3: Stadium and going they need to be giving in the
ball more.
Speaker 2: That felt like one where that the coaching staff was
really trying to not do that and ultimately was kind
of like, well, this guy's running for like twelve yards
of carry and we've given him twenty something carries, which youould.
Speaker 3: Probably just keep giving him the ball.
Speaker 2: And it ended up working out working with a school
record that day. But you know, the inclination even in
that case was to not necessarily do that right away.
So yeah, I think they're gonna do their very best
to not get caught up in the moment. If it's
a close games, it's late, you.
Speaker 3: Got to win the game. You got to win the game.
Speaker 2: But if it's the second quarter and you're playing Illinois
and you're up seventeen to seven, I don't think it's like, well,
you got to keep riding his hot hand all the
way through four quarters.
Speaker 1: No, And the proof is there that the fresh running
backs helped win a national championship, So I think that's
maybe worrying about not getting into a groove. You'd rather
have fresh running backs than guys that couldn't get a
work up a sweat against Iowa he provided you with.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The last concern here, Tom is well, do they have
a short yardage specialist and not just I don't want
to say specialists. Do they have somebody who's effective and
sure he owns I don't need them. I don't need
one person to come out and the other hey comes. CJ.
Donald said, why, I don't know, because he didn't push
a pile. He'd fall forward. Sometimes he'd fall forward, but
he wasn't as to the line of scrimmage when he
did it. Is there an effective short yardage runner here?
We know Isaiah West is thated weight. He's up to
two twenty five bass, so what we've been told, Oh,
Jackson's going to be around two twenty or so, so
he's going to be more of a power back as well.
Jacoby Jackson another big back who has some experience doing
these things. One of those three guys, do they become
the guy that you just know he's coming in and
not that you know he's coming in, you know he's
going to pick it up. Can somebody be as effective
Tom as J. T. Barrett in short yardage? Yeah?
Speaker 3: That's that is the eternal question. The j T.
Speaker 2: Barrett just never ever missed on that QB power run.
And they don't have a guy who. You know, Donaldon
came into Ohio State last year heavy. I think he
came in at four or two forty five or something
like that and cut some weight what he got there.
But you know, I'm looking at the list of weights
right now and they're not all exactly current. But Jacoby
Jackson's listed at two seventeen, Isaiah West two ten, as
you said, we have been told he's already put some
weight on there. Bo Jackson two seventeen. There's not a
guy who's the this is your you know, traditional full back,
you know, put you know, give it to refrigerator Perry
kind of thing and.
Speaker 3: Let him go over the over the goal line.
Speaker 2: Nate Roberts, Yeah, I mean Nick Roberts is there. I
think Nate Roberts is going to probably pay play more
of a traditional tight end role this year than he
did last year. But they've got to sort of sort
out that full back position a little bit. They've I
think they've got other guys in the who are probably
going to play that role more more this year. But
I think it's almost it's not that you need a
dedicated goal line guy. It's just do you have a
guy who can get the ball over that goal line
and he can also be the guy who got you
from the opposing twenty five into the red zone? Like
you can just keep the same guy in the field.
But can Bo Jackson do that? I mean, we know
he's put on weight. You know Isaiah West has put
on weight and not like I've been I've been supersizing
all of my meals, like putting. When we say put
on weight, we mean put on muff all bit. These
are guys who would be better in those goal line situations.
The other piece of that is the guys in front
of them. If the holes are just a little bit bigger,
if you got an extra three inches between the guards
and the tackle, well that will help you get across
that goal line and be a little more successful. And
I'm anticipating that they're going to have that. So you know,
the running backs do not operate in a vacuum. I
think looking at the roster and looking at some of
the development between last year and this year, if they
can stay healthy, you're seeing some of the.
Speaker 3: Stuff that you would want to see.
Speaker 2: And if the guys up front are as good as
we think they might be.
Speaker 3: That's going to go a long way to helping as well.
Speaker 1: So those are my concerns that I have for this team. Quid.
Do you see any other concerns out there if you're
watching on YouTube, But for your concerns into the comments.
If you feel like I'm being ridiculous, please keep that
to yourself. If you have any issues with Tom, please
put those are the times Insiders dot com.
Speaker 2: Go on the Insiders board.
Speaker 3: We can start a festivus threat if you'd.
Speaker 1: Like, would be more than happy to do that. And again,
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Speaker 2: Wouldn't be a Buckeye Weekly podcast if we didn't have
some extraneous background noise, even right at the end.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like there, it's like wrap it up, wrapped up. Okay,
I'm getting the wrap up side from the horde in
the background. That will do it. It comes up. Thank you
all for jenning and we will talk to you all later.
Let it away.
Speaker 3: The lodes should never meant nothing.
Speaker 1: Were where If you can tell me that's the Moor.
It's all right.
Speaker 3: We can steal currently tonight