A lightning rod hit Ohio State's tight end on Friday morning when news broke that backup tight end A.J. Alexander was lost for the 2017 football season after undergoing surgery for a knee injury he suffered playing basketball.
“It's tough. It was a freak injury,” Meyer said on Alexander Friday at the program's annual job fair. “He was playing basketball, it was non-football related. And it was a tough knee injury.”
Marcus Baugh is Ohio State's starting tight end but Alexander played in all 13 games for the Buckeyes last season. His absence is a significant blow to Kevin Wilson's position group, but the Buckeyes have three redshirt freshmen at the spot also — Luke Farrell, Jake Hausmann and Kierre Hawkins. Meyer said Friday that the team is also considering moving a player from the other side of the ball over to fill the void.
Jake Hausmann and Luke Farrell, and we're looking at Rashod Berry a little bit,” he said. “We have good athletes on this team.”
Berry came to Ohio State from Lorain Digital High School in Lorain, Ohio, and started his career at tight end. A three-star recruit in the class of 2015, the 6-foot-4, 250-pound Berry redshirted his first year on campus and made the switch the other side of the ball. Now it appears the coaching staff is at least considering making Berry flip back due to depth issues with Alexander out.
See Meyer talk about that and more on Ohio State's job fair in the video above. Brief interviews with defensive end Sam Hubbard and quarterback J.T. Barrett are also above.
Ohio State visits Indiana on Aug. 31 at 8 p.m. to open its 2017 season.
