Plenty of options for Ohio State offense

COLUMBUS – Ohio State’s offense is full of options. Its back­field is not so well stocked these days, though.

Going into its foot­ball game against Cal­i­for­nia on Sat­ur­day, OSU could be forced to rely on its No. 3 run­ning back, fresh­man Bri’onte Dunn, and its No. 4 back, Rod Smith, to man the tail­back position.

Pro­jected starter Jor­dan Hall has not played yet this sea­son because of foot surgery and Car­los Hyde, the starter in the first two games, is out with a sprained medial col­lat­eral lig­a­ment in his knee.

Hall has been cleared med­ically to return to prac­tice but whether he can play on Sat­ur­day is still in doubt.

That means Dunn, Smith, full­back Zach Boren and even wide receiver Corey Brown could be get­ting the ball from OSU’s real No. 1 run­ning threat so far, quar­ter­back Brax­ton Miller.

Dunn has gained 60 yards on 12 car­ries. Smith has 26 yards on 6 car­ries and Boren has 26 yards on 9 carries.

“We have to get those guys ready to go,” Ohio State coach Urban Meyer said about Dunn and Smith on Mon­day at his weekly press conference.

“Tal­ent is not an issue any­where at run­ning back at Ohio State. If he (Dunn) has a good Tues­day and Wednes­day in prac­tice, I’d be very com­fort­able with him.”

Meyer was less than com­fort­able with Dunn’s per­for­mance against Cent-ral Florida. “He had some glar­ing missed assign­ments,” the OSU coach said.

“It’s one thing get­ting your mind right to be a backup or third-string tail­back for a game. It’s another thing to get your mind right to jog out with the first team offense.

Those kids are tal­ented so it’s not like we have bad player back there. I have to look in their eyes, see who can han­dle it,” he said.

Run­ning­backs coach Stan Dray­ton said it is pos­si­ble Hall could return but that he would have to prove in prac­tice that he was ready for game action.

“There is a chance of Jor­dan play­ing this week. He’s right at the end of his time­line for rehab. He has been some­what cleared but we have to go on a day to day basis how he feels. We’ll see. He’s been med­ically cleared but it’s up to him on a daily basis,” he said.

Dray­ton said he will be “very, very ner­vous” if Dunn don’t play bet­ter in prac­tice this week than they did in last Saturday’s game.

“Those younger backs, Bri’onte Dunn and Rod Smith, based on per­for­mance last week, were not very good. But we wipe the slate clean every week.

“They have to run the ball. They have to be solid in pro­tec­tion. They have to do things in the pass game. They have to be able to read defenses and read routes. There are a lot of things that have to be checked off that list before they’re cleared to play,” he said.

“Right now I’m not ner­vous but if it starts to look like it did on game day, I will become very, very nervous.”

Fresh­man tail­back War­ren Ball is also out indef­i­nitely because of foot surgery.

Dray­ton said he thought five tail­backs would be enough to keep OSU well stocked at that posi­tion when the sea­son began.

“In my mind I need to have three pre­pared to play every week. I feel like we have enough back there to get it done,” he said.

KICKOFF TIME FOR UAB GAME: Ohio State’s game against Alabama-Birmingham on Sept. 22 will have a noon kick­off and will be tele­vised on the Big Ten Network.

INJURY UPDATE ON WILLIAMS: Defen­sive line­man Nathan Williams did not play last week against Cen­tral Florida after sore­ness devel­oped in his sur­gi­cally repaired right knee when he played around 30 plays in the opener against Miami.

His sta­tus for today’s game is uncer­tain and that could be a con­tin­u­ing sit­u­a­tion for the fifth-year senior, who had microfrac­ture surgery last year.

“I’m hop­ing we’ll have him this week,” Meyer said. “But I think for the next 10 weeks it’s going to be ‘How’s Nathan Will-iams doing?’ and it’s prob­a­bly going to be the same response.”

INJURY UPDATE ON BENNETT: Defen­sive line­man Michael Ben­nett will be out at least two more weeks with a groin injury.

Meyer said an MRI on Ben­nett showed “some dam­age in there.”

TOO MANY BIG PLAYS: Ohio State has allowed seven pass­ing plays of more than 20 yards in its first two games.

“We have to stop giv­ing up big plays. That has to stop now,” Meyer said.

Posted by Jon Kleinknecht on Sep 13 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.