"One man may seem bad in coverage,
Another not make plays,
Others look like quite a waste
Of the attention of Ryan Day.
They need the Brotherhood's leadership
So please, don't call them dim.
Sevyn Banks is no longer a Buckeye. Actually, that's wrong. He is a graduate of Ohio State and played in Columbus for years before moving on to hopefully greener pastures. If that standard is good enough for our warm feelings towards Joe Burrow, then it should work for guys with somewhat less-than-stellar resumes versus expectations like Sevyn Banks. A better way to put it is that Sevyn Banks is exploring his options via the transfer portal in large part due to a disappointing 2021 season in which a hype train that he had no role in making derailed fairly early.
Those expectations are what I find interesting about Banks' story. Why was Sevyn Banks tabbed as one of the best cornerbacks in America after a wonky, abbreviated 2020 football season? Did Ohio State's reputation as Defensive Back University foist stardom upon a player essentially because we needed a guy to talk about? What does this say about the ridiculous and endless cycle of previews and preseason hype that fans expect and the media provides?
What happens when a pretty okay player is built up to be the next great one?
And of course Ohio State has earned a fairly solid reputation as DBU. The number of safeties and cornerbacks who have burnished Ohio State's fame in that area, especially recently, is high: Denzel Ward, Bradley Roby, Vonn Bell, Malcolm Jenkins, Marshon Lattimore (among others) have all had good-to-great seasons in the NFL in the past decade. Not all of them have been consistently great (or even good), but for abstract concepts like "DBU," a single season of competence is just enough ephemera to make the point.
Unfortunately for Sevyn Banks, the exact same is true for Ohio State DBs in college. He played well enough in 2019 and 2020, looking solid against the likes of Michigan and Clemson before getting totally smoked against Alabama. Over eight games in 2020, Banks had 23 tackles, six passes defended, and one wonky interception at the end of the Sugar Bowl that kind of just fell into his lap. The good outweighed the bad and people had deadlines to file, so hell, why not pencil the guy in as a potential first round draft pick in the 2022 NFL Draft? Ohio State corners always kick ass, right? Definitely tab Banks as one of the best defensive backs in the Big Ten, if not the country. Couldn't hurt!
It's telling, then, that a lot of what was actually written about Banks, including from noted Ohio State sports website Eleven Warriors dot com, was couched in language which verbally had its fingers crossed that Banks would turn out to be as great as everyone hoped he would be:
A new starter in 2020, Banks took his lumps from time to time, but his overall play was pretty solid. Most eyes were on Wade and the early problems at safety as the Buckeye secondary struggled during the abbreviated season, but Banks certainly flashed his own potential at times.
Wow! What an incredible endorsement of a player! If "He's fine, we guess" doesn't blow your socks off as an NFL general manager, I don't know what would!
So yes, I think the offseason content gods dictated some of the narrative about Sevyn Banks. I also think that a general fan awareness that Ohio State's defense, especially in the secondary, was a potentially hobbling weakness led many to glom on to Banks as a cure-all that would carry the Buckeyes to the promised land.
That, too, was unfair: even if Banks had turned out to be an all-world corner for Ohio State, that wouldn't have been nearly enough to solve their defensive problems. Even with a budding superstar in the form of Denzel Burke (and believe me, I see the irony here), it didn't really help the Buckeyes win when it counted the most.
For his part, Banks didn't shine in 2021. There are several possible reasons for that, especially a number of ill-timed injuries, but I don't think anyone should write him off as a football player. He still has the capability to be a good or even great addition to whatever team snags him in the transfer portal. Hopefully this time he'll be able to show his skills without the burden of outsized and borderline unrealistic expectations looming over his head.
As for the Buckeyes? Well, like I said: we've got another young cornerback already waiting in the wings to step up and wear the crown. And I'm sure that Denzel Burke wouldn't shy away from that challenge, because that's exactly why a player like him would come to Columbus in the first place. But we should also acknowledge that the likes of Burke or Banks or Travis Howard or Bradley Roby or any number of other marquee players aren't, by themselves, capable of reversing Ohio State's defensive woes, nor do they become All-Americans simply by virtue of the uniform they wear.
There are massive expectations placed on Ohio State's defense in 2022, and new defensive coordinator Jim Knowles is tasked with making sure that it lives up to them. That's where fans and media should be focusing this offseason; not on individual players made into saviors, but on a staff paid millions of dollars to make sure that the Silver Bullets return to Ohio Stadium.
