COLUMBUS – J.T. Barrett was supposed to look good in Saturday’s first scrimmage of Ohio State’s fall camp. So too were Joe Burrow and Dwayne Haskins, the two quarterbacks coming for the second-string spot on the Buckeyes’ depth chart. Yet when Ohio State safeties Erick Smith and Damon Webb were asked which offensive players stood out to them on Saturday, both of them pointed to another quarterback: true freshman Tate Martell.
"I like Little Tate when he’s got the ball in his hands," Smith said, referencing Martell’s 5-foot-11 stature.
While the three more established quarterbacks wear black jerseys in practice, indicating that they are not to be hit, Martell wears a red jersey with the rest of the offensive players, leaving him vulnerable to get roughed up in a scrimmage. Both Smith and Webb, however, said Martell makes it tough for the defense to hit him.
"He’s definitely a running threat," Webb said. "He’s real shifty. We can’t really tackle him in open space, so he’s going to be really good."
"He’s definitely a playmaker," added Webb, who says the early enrollee quarterback has been impressive since the spring. Smith described Martell as "one of the most elusive players on the team."
As impressive as Martell might have been, that doesn’t mean he’s moving up the quarterback depth chart, at least not yet. There’s a reason why the Buckeyes are allowing Martell to take contact while protecting the more experienced quarterbacks. Barrett is entrenched as the starter, but Webb says Haskins and Burrow have also been impressive in fall camp.
"Dwayne and Joe, they always look good," Webb said. "They go out each and every day, they make spectacular plays too."
Smith, Webb and defensive coordinator Greg Schiano were the only team representatives to speak with the media after Saturday’s scrimmage, so we were only able to get the defense’s perspective on how it went. Though the first three periods of Saturday’s practice were open to the media for observations and video and photos, the scrimmage portion of the practice was closed.
With that being said, Schiano did what coordinators often do when evaluating a scrimmage: praise the opposing unit while saying he expects more from his own.
"I think a lot of guys had good performances today," Schiano said. "I think our offense played well today, and defensively, we need to do a better job with our assignment football."
Overall, Schiano was pleased with the progress he has seen from the Buckeyes over the past 10 days, in which they have practiced eight times.
"We’ve performed better (than Saturday), but that’s what training camp is for: to learn, get better," Schiano said. "We’ve had some really good practices. Today wasn’t our best, but we have good players that did a good job."
Schiano said scrimmaging Saturday was important because it was the first time during this year’s fall camp that the Buckeyes were put in true game-like situations.
"Communication, substitution, all those things are important," Schiano said. "Those are things that when you get into the first game, you don’t want to be the first time you’ve done them. So a lot of teams I think make the mistake, they run plays, they just keep running plays. You need to play the game, you need to play situations."
