With beads of sweat rolling off his brow, Bri'onte Dunn ripped off his helmet and sat it on the turf of the indoor practice field at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center.
He and his Ohio State teammates had just completed their seventh practice of the spring season Thursday. After stretching with workout bands and the strength and conditioning staff, players began ripping off tape from their ankles, wrists, forearms and thighs before heading into the locker room.
Dunn did the same as reporters approached him — an unusual affair for the former four-star prospect from Canton, Ohio, who's now in his fourth season at Ohio State under Urban Meyer.
"I don't regret nothing in my life. Right now I'm doing good," Dunn, a redshirt junior, said. "Like Coach Meyer said, I got a lot of momentum and I'm going to keep it going."
Meyer did say that. He used the exact word momentum when asked about Dunn Tuesday.
"Bri'onte Dunn's got a little momentum going in his world," Meyer said. "He's got some momentum right now and it's showing up on the field."
For Dunn, it's about time.
A heralded recruit, Dunn's hardly made a mark in his time as a Buckeye — 34 career carries for 196 yards and two touchdowns mainly in mop-up duty. The bulk of those came during his freshman campaign, as he sat out the 2013 season due to lack of effort and tumbled down the depth chart last year.
He's been relegated to special teams just like many others have under Meyer's watch. If you want to earn time, you better be willing to do the dirty work.
"I knew that Coach Meyer thinks that special teams are really, really important so I knew I had to impress him in that and work my way up," Dunn said.
He started doing that towards the end of last season, earning more time in kickoff coverage and catching the eye of the man in charge.
"I don't regret nothing in my life. Right now I'm doing good. Like Coach Meyer said, I got a lot of momentum and I'm going to keep it going."– Bri'onte Dunn
"It started with kickoff and special teams contributions last year. He was outstanding by the end of the year," Meyer said. "Kind of floated around here for a couple of years and did nothing. I mean, nothing."
Laziness won't yield any playing time at Ohio State, something that took Dunn some time to comprehend. And now with starting running back Ezekiel Elliott out for spring practice as he nurses his surgically repaired left wrist back to full health, Dunn wants to make his mark when he has the ball in his hands — not when he's chasing it.
"It's a very great opportunity," Dunn said. "I get lots of reps ... The most, biggest thing a player's gotta prove on offense is you gotta make plays. You gotta make plays and you've gotta be able to block. So that's what I've been working on."
Elliott was one of the best in the country at making plays by season's end last year, torching Wisconsin, Alabama and finally Oregon in the postseason as Ohio State ran to the national championship.
Dunn's aware the starting job is Elliott's and Elliott's alone, but he doesn't want what happened last year to become a recurring theme.
Dunn was downgraded to third-string along with Warren Ball behind Elliott and then-true freshman Curtis Samuel, an explosive runner that Meyer recruited to play H-back but put him in the backfield out of fall camp.
Now, Meyer has Samuel taking reps with the wide receivers with hopes that he could be another hybrid style back along with Jalin Marshall and Dontre Wilson.
The door is open for Dunn once again, and its his turn to be featured in the highlight videos the program pumps out during spring drills — at least for now.
"It's just me and Warren. So as an older guy I just took charge and we just went at it," Dunn said.
So while the hits, reps, carries and drops of sweat are at higher level than ever, Dunn's aware of the opportunity at hand.
"Oh yeah, for sure. I take this spring very seriously," Dunn said. "There's two running backs right now so we get a lot of reps and I really take this to get my game better each and every day."
