In the first four games of the season, Ohio State hasn’t faced a quarterback who has rushed for more than 14 yards.
Adrian Martinez hopes to alter that trend.
In the first four games of his season, Martinez has compiled 234 yards on 61 rushes with three touchdowns. Last week against Illinois, he carried the ball 18 times for 118 yards, which included a 44-yard scamper. He’s quite possibly the best quarterback the Buckeyes will face in the regular season, and the challenge begins with his legs.
“He's very athletic, so in terms of the run game, his ability to extend plays with his feet, you've got to get him on the ground, which is not easy,” Ryan Day said on Tuesday. “He's explosive, he's fast, he's strong and has good running skills, makes good decisions, and then throwing the ball, he's really accurate. I think when you combine that together of the ability to run and throw along with his intelligence and game management, he is by far the best quarterback we've seen.”
Ohio State has housed a suffocating run defense to open the season, allowing opponents to average just 1.7 rushing yards per game in the first month, but it hasn’t faced a ground game comparable to one the Martinez-led Cornhuskers have.
In order to minimize the impact of Martinez’s legs, Davon Hamilton said the team has conditioned more this week. Per fellow defensive tackle Jashon Cornell, the defensive line is focused on attacking the quarterback from all angles to minimize escape lanes.
“I think that one thing that we have to do is close the pocket on him,” Cornell said. “If we cause him to be in the tunnel, it doesn't allow him to run the ball, allow him to get outside the pocket. Because that's one thing he can do really good is get outside the pocket and make plays.”
How Isaiah Pryor’s transfer affects Ohio State
Had Isaiah Pryor played one more game this season, he would’ve been ineligible for a redshirt. So he opted to place his name in the transfer portal, effectively ending his Ohio State career and maintaining his final two years of eligibility.
Per Day, there “wasn’t a whole bunch of conversations” between Pryor and him before the decision to move on from Ohio State.
“We wish him nothing but the best,” Day said. “We're obviously extremely disappointed that he would leave the program four games in, but you know, we just want to make sure he has everything he needs, and there's no ill will there, and he left amicably, so we'll just kind of support him the best we can and wish him nothing but the best of luck getting his degree and moving on.”
Jordan Fuller added: “Obviously that's my brother. I hate to see him go, but at the end of the day, it's his and his family's decision. I support him through everything.”
With Pryor no longer in the room, Ohio State’s safety depth would be a heck of a lot more worrisome had Jeff Hafley and Greg Mattison not turned to a scheme that primarily uses a single-deep safety.
Josh Proctor, who was listed as the co-backup to Fuller along with Pryor, will become the sole backup at the position. He already has an interception and a couple other near-picks this season. Behind him, few players have much in-game experience.
“Now you're looking at you've got Jordan, you have Josh,” Day said. “And then there's some other guys there that can also play like Jahsen Wint can play there, Marcus Hooker can play there. We have some different guys that can fill in there, so we feel pretty good about our depth there.”
Fuller mentioned Hooker, a redshirt freshman, and freshman Bryson Shaw as a pair of players who will add depth behind him and Proctor.
Wan’Dale = Rondale?
Nobody at Ohio State needs a reminder of Rondale Moore and the 12-catch, 170-yard, two-touchdown game against the Buckeyes last year.
So when Day called Nebraska’s Wan’Dale Robinson “dynamic” and said he reminds him of “the kid from Purdue,” no one needed to clarify which player he was referencing.
“He could be a match-up problem for you if he gets on a linebacker or speed sweeps, things like that,” Day said. “He can do a bunch of different things, a little bit of a hybrid.”
Robinson hasn’t quite matched Moore’s production at this point, though.
Nebraska’s 5-foot-10, 190-pound freshman weapon has 27 rushes for 119 yards and a touchdown, and he has 17 catches for 195 yards and two touchdowns. Robinson is joined by a fellow undersized playmaker, J.D. Spielman, who leads the Cornhuskers with 18 catches and 384 receiving yards, an average of 21.3 yards per catch. The 5-foot-9, 180-pound junior has one receiving touchdown this season.
“Just with their speed and quickness, we're going to have to make plays in open space,” Fuller said. “It's going to be a big game, big challenge. We're going to be ready for it.”
Why Martinez isn’t a Buckeye
In an alternate reality, it’s not too crazy to think Ohio State could have been suiting up Martinez as its quarterback to face Nebraska this weekend.
Day had a choice. In the fall of 2017, he picked to offer a scholarship to Matthew Baldwin rather than Martinez, eventually landing Baldwin and giving the Cornhuskers a chance to add their quarterback of the future. Per Day on Tuesday, he was “very close” to offering Martinez.
“Adrian didn't play his senior year, and he was dealing with a shoulder injury,” Day said. “I loved him. He came for – I forget exactly what game it was, but he visited with his family. Fell in love with him, great kid. It was just hard for us because there was no senior film, and at the end of the day, we just weren't sure.”
Had Ohio State landed Martinez, maybe it wouldn’t have pursued Justin Fields with such veracity. Maybe the coaching staff would have been all-in on him, he would have won the starting job after Dwayne Haskins left and Day would have entered his first season as a head coach with Martinez catching snaps from center Josh Myers.
We’ll never know.
“Had a feeling he was going to be a special player, and so hats off to him,” Day said. “He is a special player, and he's everything he said he was going to be and we thought he would be, and he's going to have a bright future in college and then beyond.”
A Semifinalist For The Campbell Trophy
Fuller has already made a name for himself off the field by becoming a two-time Academic All-American, and the second-year team captain in the running for another award that combines on-field and off-field achievements.
The National Football Foundation named Fuller one of 185 semifinalists for the William V. Campbell Trophy on Wednesday. The 12-14 finalists will be announced on Oct. 30.
“It's cool getting recognized for sure,” Fuller said. “It's really a blessing. A lot of hard work put in.”
In order to win the award, a player has to show “combined academic success, football performance and exemplary leadership,” per the press release. It’ll be given to the senior with a GPA above 3.2 who has shown “outstanding football ability” and “strong leadership and citizenship.”
Fuller, a future NFL draft pick with a 3.6 GPA and an executive board position on a student organization called Redefining Athletic Standards, has put himself in the running.
“I just hope I'm making my family proud,” Fuller said. “That's really what it is to me.”
