Jerron Cage has been a scholarship player at Ohio State longer than any other member of the 2022 Ohio State football team.
A sixth-year senior, Cage is the last remaining member of the Buckeyes’ recruiting class of 2017 who is still playing college football. (Tight end Mitch Rossi and long snapper Bradley Robinson have also been with the Buckeyes since 2017, but both of them joined the team as walk-ons.)
Now that every other member of his recruiting class has moved on from Ohio State, Cage can’t help but feel old.
“I feel like I've been here for so long,” Cage said this spring. “I feel like a grandpa.”
Even so, Cage said it wasn’t a difficult decision to use the additional year of eligibility all players received from the NCAA in 2020 and stay at Ohio State for his sixth year. Even after five seasons as a Buckeye, Cage still feels like he has more to achieve.
“Basically just felt like I needed more to prove,” Cage said. “I can improve my game so much.”
Cage’s Ohio State career got off to a quiet start. He redshirted as a true freshman and appeared in just three games in 2018. He continued to play only occasionally in 2019, and did not make his first career start until the final game of the 2020 season, when he took Tommy Togiai’s place in the lineup for the national championship game after Togiai tested positive for COVID-19.
He was a regular in the nose tackle rotation last season, splitting snaps throughout the year with Antwuan Jackson and Ty Hamilton. And he made one of the season’s most memorable plays when he scooped up a fumble and returned it 57 yards for a touchdown in the Buckeyes’ late October win over Penn State.
For the season as a whole, however, Cage recorded only 11 total tackles with four tackles for loss and one sack. He was unlikely to be selected if he entered this year’s NFL draft. He’ll have his biggest chance to prove himself yet in 2022, though, as he’s expected to be the Buckeyes’ primary starter at nose tackle this year.
He has extra motivation to parlay a strong final season into an opportunity to play in the league.
While Cage feels like a grandpa around his younger Buckeye teammates, he actually is a father. Cage beams with pride when he talks about his son, Jerron Jr., who was born in June 2020.
“When he smiles, that just brightens my whole day,” Cage said. “Since he was born, he was just like the light, like that's my life, you feel me? Just everything changed, my whole life changed. Instead of just for me, it's for him.”
Ever since Jerron Jr. was born, Cage has been driven by his desire to provide for his son, and he knows his performance on the field this fall will go a long way toward determining whether he gets the large paychecks that come with playing in the NFL.
“Staying another year wasn't for me. It’s to put me in a better spot for next year, for him, so I can take care of him the best way I can,” Cage said. “So that's my only goal. I just want to make sure he has a great life. No struggles. I don’t want him to go through the tough stuff I went through. I just love him to death.”
In addition to the sense of purpose his son gives him every day, Cage says he is also motivated by his love for his Ohio State teammates, who he says “keep me young.” While Cage heard plenty of times that he should transfer for more playing time elsewhere, he chose to stay the course, believing Ohio State is where he belongs.
“A lot of people told me I should have transferred, but I didn't want to transfer,” Cage, a Cincinnati native, told Eleven Warriors. “I was too stuck here. I had been committed here for so long. Then I'm already from Ohio. So I just had to stick it out.”
Cage said there were moments where he wondered if he’d ever get the opportunity to make a big play like he did against Penn State last year. But he continued to believe in himself because of how his teammates have pushed and encouraged him.
“I definitely had those moments where I just felt like, ‘Will I ever get this moment?’” Cage said. “But the D-line saved me. The brotherhood saved me. Because there's just times you can get in your head sometimes, and it don't be healthy sometimes. But if you’ve got the right people around you, you can get through anything.”
Ryan Day appreciates the loyalty Cage has shown by staying with the Buckeyes even as he had to patiently wait his turn, and said after the Penn State game that Cage had become a valuable leader for the Buckeyes’ defensive line.
“I think that when you look at Jerron’s career here, it’s a tribute to him and his hard work,” Day said in November. “He’s a veteran player. He’s somebody who has a mature approach. And I think his teammates respect him when he says something.
“It didn’t all come at once for Jerron, but he’s worked through tough times. He’s become stronger for working through some of that adversity. And he’s somebody that we go to and look to when times get tough.”
As Cage enters the final season of his lengthy Ohio State career, he wants to be even more of a leader for his younger teammates. And for those players who might be waiting their turn this year like he had to earlier in his career, he hopes to show them a slow start doesn’t prevent future success.
“Everybody's story is different,” Cage said. “Everything has a purpose in life. And God puts you through things. And you just gotta keep faith sometimes and just trust in his way.”
