XICHIGAN WEEK
Ohio State blows out Indiana, 38-15. Now, it's time to do the same to That Team Up North.
Plenty of Buckeyes had star-turning, breakthrough seasons in 2022 and they’ve been celebrated accordingly.
Players like C.J. Stroud and Paris Johnson Jr. have since capitalized on that success by becoming first-round draft picks in the NFL, and returning stars like Marvin Harrison Jr. and Tommy Eichenberg are widely expected to replicate the success they enjoyed this past season once again in 2023.
But we’re not focused on any such Buckeyes today. Instead, we’re highlighting players that, for one reason or another, experienced a down year after a previous triumph or remain on the cusp of realizing the full potential they’ve flashed in the past. In particular, we're looking at five players on the Buckeye roster that both fit that mold and appear poised to make a major splash for the scarlet and gray in the season to come.
Here are five sleeping giants that opponents would be wise not to awaken in 2023:
RB TreVeyon Henderson
Henderson didn’t come close to rivaling his record-setting freshman campaign in year two, but don’t expect that downward trajectory to continue into 2023.
The Virginia native’s 1,560 yards from scrimmage and 19 total touchdowns in 2021 put him on the map as one of college football’s elite returning running backs in 2022, but injuries halted his ability to prove that on the field at every turn. As a result, Henderson only appeared in eight games for Ohio State, finishing his second season with 599 yards from scrimmage and seven total touchdowns before undergoing foot surgery ahead of the Buckeyes’ College Football Playoff matchup against Georgia.
It was clear that Henderson wasn’t himself as a sophomore, but the extent of his ailments wasn’t revealed until after the dust settled on the 2022 season.
“Basically I couldn't push off that whole last season. Every time I tried to push off I was basically refracturing that bone,” Henderson said this spring. “And then I tore some ligaments and tendons. So my foot was basically beat up. … It was moments where sometimes I'd be hopping around or it would take me a while to really hit the hole. And that's just because I knew that if I would plant my foot, that I would basically refracture that bone. Even when I was getting tackled, like at the beginning of every game, as soon as I'd get tackled, I'd basically retweak my foot.
“I was just thinking about it all the time. Going into the game, you don't want to be thinking all the time, you just want to go out there and do it.”
Now fully healthy ahead of preseason camp, Henderson is hell-bent on showing fans that this past season’s slip in production was nothing more than a fluke. Henderson will have to contend with as much competition for carries as he’s ever had, with Miyan Williams, Chip Trayanum and Dallan Hayden all hungry for a bigger workload in 2023. But if he returns to form and can progress even further from the flashes of superstardom we witnessed in his freshman year, Henderson won’t have to worry about opportunities in the Buckeye offense.
CB Denzel Burke
“It’s a personal year” for Burke, whose slow start to the 2022 season made many question if his stellar performance as a true freshman may have been overblown. Burke heard all the noise throughout the year and is eager to “prove all the doubters wrong” with his caliber of play in 2023.
Every indication thus far this offseason is that Burke is on track to do just that. Ohio State’s defensive coaching staff began heavily lauding the Arizona product after the Buckeyes’ very first spring practice, and he didn’t slow down from there. Burke finished the spring schedule as one of Ohio State’s top performers and his increased intensity and work ethic was apparent to coaches and teammates alike.
“(He’s) competing way harder than usual. He’s in here at 5 a.m. watching film like before anybody is here, so that's what kind of separates him and makes him a great player,” OSU cornerback Jordan Hancock said. “He's definitely moving like a pro. Maybe he didn't do that last year. I feel like he kind of did last year, but he's taking it to a whole different level this year, and I feel like he's gonna go back on the map this year.”
Perhaps acclimating to a new defensive scheme and position coach was more difficult than expected for Burke last season, or maybe he didn’t enter his sophomore year with quite the level of focus that was necessary. Either way, Burke already began taking strides in the back half of the 2022 season and sounds like a man on a mission ahead of 2023.
DE JT Tuimoloau
The nation saw Tuimoloau realize his full potential in 2023, but only for one fleeting afternoon in Happy Valley.
Fans won’t soon forget the dominance displayed by the five-star pass rusher against Penn State, when Tuimoloau recorded two sacks, two interceptions – one returned for a touchdown – a forced fumble and fumble recovery, a batted-down pass and three tackles for loss. But they sure hope to see more where that came from in Tuimoloau’s third season, and with Zach Harrison out of the program, he’ll have to be more productive on a week-to-week basis.
.@JT_Tuimoloau was in the on the @OhioStateFB defense today.
— Ohio State on BTN (@OhioStateOnBTN) October 29, 2022
6 tackles
2 sacks
2 INT
1 TD
1 FR
3 TFL
@enjoyillinois pic.twitter.com/SBSVHloxck
Luckily for the Buckeyes, Larry Johnson doesn’t think it will take wholesale changes for Tuimoloau to become the consistently elite player he’s long been expected to be.
“Like I always say, first block the noise. Just concentrate on who you are. Don't worry about all the other things outside,” Johnson said in March. “Just concentrate on your technique and just keep getting better. And again, I say this all the time; it's not the big things, it's the little things that you get better as a player. And that's what we work on, it's all the little things. Where you step, his hand placement, eye discipline, all those things are important to become an elite player. He has the talent and skill set, so how can we make him better? Well, that's my job. I got to find those little things to make him better.”
Tuimoloau’s spring did little to dispel the notion that he could have a true breakout season in 2023, either, as he routinely spearheaded the havoc wreaked upon Ohio State’s retooled offensive line in multiple scrimmages this offseason.
DE Jack Sawyer
Relative to his Ohio State teammates, Sawyer’s second season in scarlet and gray was nothing to scoff at. With 4.5 sacks in 2022, the Pickerington product tied Mike Hall for the team lead. But Sawyer – and the fans who have waited for him to resemble the five-star prospect he was pegged as out of high school – have higher expectations.
Like Tuimoloau, Sawyer will be tasked with taking over a larger portion of productivity from the defensive end position with both Harrison and Javontae Jean-Baptiste now gone from the program. That pursuit should be made easier for the 6-foot-4, 265-pound lineman now that he’ll no longer have to cross-train at the hybrid Jack linebacker position in 2023. Sawyer will be a full-time defensive end in his third year, and both he and the Buckeye coaching staff believe focusing on one position will yield his best results yet.
“I thought just evaluating it, just conversation with coaches, said ‘Hey, I think it's best for Jack to go back to the line of scrimmage. And I think we got another guy that can probably play the Jack and let him put his hand in the ground, let him go rush,’” Johnson said this spring. “That's why we brought him here to do that. And I thought that it (playing Jack) was a good experiment, but now let's go play football. And I think that's the best position for him. He feels happy where he's at. And that's important too.”
While it was destined to be difficult for Sawyer to live up to comparisons to the likes of Chase Young or the Bosa brothers, 2023 could be the year he truly takes the next step as a game-wrecking force for the Buckeyes.
DT Tyleik Williams
No Buckeye had as many sacks in 2022 as Williams did as a true freshman in 2021. Even that year, Haskell Garrett was the only Ohio State player to register more than Williams’ five sacks.
So surely as a sophomore, given more opportunities in Johnson’s defensive tackle rotation, Williams would outperform his freshman pace, right? Not quite. Williams managed to tally just one sack in 2022 with four fewer tackles for loss than he had in far fewer snaps the year prior. Instead of Williams, it was fellow second-year lineman Mike Hall who exploded as the breakout defensive tackle on the roster, recording 4.5 sacks and 7.5 tackles for loss before the bye week alone.
Based on the talent he displayed in his first year, though, it seems like just a matter of time before Williams begins making the kind of game-changing plays that stuff the stat sheet. With Taron Vincent and Jerron Cage moving on from the program, Williams, Hall and Ty Hamilton will be the breadwinners in the middle of Johnson’s defensive line, and the possibility of a stellar season from No. 91 should not be overlooked.
