Ja'Had Carter sustained a right leg injury in practice over the weekend.
It's never good when a guy needs help leaving the field, but the best kind of bad news in football injuries is when you learn an injury is not believed to be too serious, which is the case with Carter.
For now, anyway. He's since been seen moving without any conspicuous laboring or pain, but as we'll discuss - anecdotes like that are not comforting enough to feel comfortable anymore.
I've had an unhealthy and often myopic relationship with Ohio State football for most of my life, but only recently have I found myself struggling to get an accurate pulse on the Buckeyes. Like, was Carter hurt or hurt hurt?
We used to find out this stuff quickly. Now it seems like every injury takes months to reveal true severity. These days my trust and optimism are both unwell. I won't blame aging or Michigan. Not today.
It may have started with Nick Bosa's injury in 2018. No warning at all, just *poof* no more Bosas. He was just going to miss the Tulane game at first. Then, ambiguity. And finally, sayonara.
In 2019 Justin Hilliard and Kamryn Babb suffered conspicuous injuries that were quickly defined without any mystery or intrigue. That felt like normal tough luck, even if their respective comebacks were anything but normal.
Sep 15, 2018: Nick Bosa's final collegiate highlight, stripping TCU QB Shawn Robinson. ©Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports
Jeff Okudah and Wyatt Davis were hurt in the second Wisconsin meeting that season, but they returned. Bosa's ambiguous injury and canceled return drifted into the ether. Then 2020 happened.
That virus disrupted every element of our lives, including how the Buckeyes reported injuries - whether they were core muscle strains, contact traces or positive tests. It created a waiting game nobody enjoyed. Saturday's game is on? Okay, cool. Alright, who's playing? Ah, not cool.
You know who didn't miss any time in 2020? Carter. He started 10 games as a true freshman for the Orange. Neither Syracuse or the pandemic couldn't get him off the field. Hopefully his right leg is just fine.
But I have no idea. Maybe he'll return to practice and find himself on a pitch count like Jaxon Smith-Njigba was last season en route to mostly not playing at all. Sorry, that's cynical. Ohio State has dinged-up difference-makers who can't stay on the field, along with other guys nursing chronic pain who simply play through it.
Plagued by injuries that lingered throughout the 2022 season, Cameron Martinez is building momentum with a clean bill of health as OSU's top nickel safety so far in spring camp. https://t.co/IHYoZIvqyT
— Eleven Warriors (@11W) April 4, 2023
Difference-makers like Mike Hall, by far the Buckeyes' most disruptive DT who couldn't buy 20 snaps in a big game. He was allegedly dinged up, but then fully healthy for the Peach Bowl. Then it kicked off and he barely played, as usual.
Hall always seemed to be moving without any conspicuous laboring or pain. I don't know, comrades, it feels like the Ohio State back seven really could have benefited from the fastest, most chaotic and effective pass rush possible.
That version of the Rushmen objectively includes copious amounts of Hall. This isn't hindsight, deep analysis or garden variety fan girling - it's just cynicism. I still don’t get why that was allowed to happen, but it feels like we just slap chronic injury on everything now.
The temperature around Ohio State's injury transparency seems much colder ever since the season where virus discretion gave cover to guys with pulled hamstrings, those who tested positive, perhaps a disciplinary action or an unfortunately-timed contact trace after New Year's that produced the sum of all fears during the week of the CFP title game.
The temperature around Ohio State's injury transparency seems much colder since 2020.
Availability reports should not carry an odor, but it still smells like 2020 even if the Buckeyes are just innocently running spring drills and scrimmages without any administrative chicanery. Carter's injury reawakened something I had tucked out of my frontal lobe months ago to avoid driving myself crazy.
I’ll run it back: So, what exactly happened to TreVeyon Henderson last season?
Yes, I’m aware he suffered an injury against Toledo and sat out the Rutgers game - I was there and edited the story, thanks. Henderson returned for Michigan State, where he reportedly re-aggravated it.
But then he was well enough to deliver a dagger at Penn State a week later. After that, he sat out two games to mend. And then, the most steel beams-melting moment of the season took place in College Park. I tried to forget about it, and thanks to Michigan and Georgia, for awhile I did.
But it's April now. What exactly happened here?
Uh...did he get Roy Hall'd off-camera? The photo atop this article was chosen with prejudice.
Henderson entered the game after two weeks off, moving without any conspicuous laboring or pain. On this snap he moves forward, laterally, backward, cuts, jukes, accelerates and decelerates in the endzone without incident. It appears to be a standard-issue unfair TreVeyon open field highlight film for what is already a massive library.
But then, the broadcast cuts to the television hounds while Henderson is celebrating with his teammates. A few seconds later, he's now moving gingerly. Sideline audio picks up a frustrated F-bomb, which feels extremely out-of-place following a touchdown.
Henderson missed the rest of the season, and his absence the following week must have contributed to the most puckered and overthought Michigan game plan this side of 1996.
But admittedly, I am just a guy with an unhealthy and often myopic relationship with Ohio State football. Perhaps this takes place at programs far and wide that I don't pay close attention to, let alone have fever dreams about in April after they scrimmage.
It's hard to realize when you lack critical big picture orientation or context. For example, I have never met a UConn fan in real life despite living in the northeast, but I'm sure they exist and are quite happy during most basketball seasons.
And I don't know a single person who has seen the new Avatar movie, which has made over $2.3 billion in movie tickets. Maybe those people avoid me. I cannot blame them. Anyway, I hope Carter was able to walk it off. Ohio State will need his seasoning in its safety-driven defense.
That unit would benefit from his presence - but also from its best interior lineman getting north of 50 snaps a game. I'll try replacing my cynicism with speaking my personnel wishes into existence.
