When Marcus Baugh arrived at Ohio State, there wasn't many who questioned his talent on the football field.
A four-star tight end from Riverside, Calif., Baugh committed to the Buckeyes early in the recruiting process, before finally signing his Letter of Intent as a member of Urban Meyer's 2013 recruiting class.
Then, immaturity, laziness and ultimately trouble hit.
Baugh has a pair of run-ins with the law in his first year at Ohio State, then was indefinitely suspended for a third — for underage consumption of alcohol.
The screw ups yielded a redshirt season for Baugh, who then sat behind upperclassmen Jeff Heuerman and Nick Vannett during Ohio State's run through the inaugural College Football Playoff last season.
Undoubtedly in Meyer's doghouse, Baugh is determined to put those dumb miscues behind him in order to step in as the backup to Vannett in 2015.
"All that's behind me. I was 18, I'm over that now," Baugh said Tuesday, the first time he's been permitted to speak to the media since spring of 2014. "I think I'm pretty good right now, I'm just trying to earn the trust to get on the field now."
"All that other stuff — I'm good with that. Now (Meyer's) just talking about getting me on the field, said I'm on the bubble."– Marcus Baugh
He's got a ways to go, at least according to his position coach Tim Hinton, but he's miles from where he's been.
"I think early in camp he struggled a little bit, just kind of accepting where he was getting a lot more reps and is in a position now where he had the expectation level change on him," Hinton said Tuesday. "Now, he's at a level where he's gotta go play every play and have very, very high expectation level. I think early in camp that kind of struck him and I think we've gotten a lot better with it."
Expectations can hardly be any higher for a team coming off a national championship that returns so much talent on both sides of the ball, but Baugh is doing his best to take what he's learned from Vannett and Heuerman in his first two years in the program and apply it.
"Just going hard and doing things right," Baugh said. "Jeff and Nick are great examples of doing the right things and being a man about what they do."
The redshirt sophomore identified his demeanor — "I really don't like to smile that much," he said — in addition to remaining out of trouble are things Meyer and Hinton drive home with him every chance they get.
"All that other stuff — I'm good with that," Baugh said. "Now (Meyer's) just talking about getting me on the field, said I'm on the bubble."
He's got to get off it soon, because Ohio State's not going to move forward without two capable tight ends.
"It's very critical. It's critical for Marcus Baugh to get to the level that Nick Vannett was at a year ago. There's no question about that," Hinton said. "That position is very crucial in our success."
