TreVeyon Henderson and Quinshon Judkins are a generational pairing.
They are the immediate future of the most electrifying running back tandem Columbus has seen in ages; peak performers in figurative contract years with absolutely everything at stake - and best of all, they've bought into all of it.
Team. Touchdowns. Legacies. Load management embracers. No drama. No complacency.
Ezekiel Elliott was getting famous while Curtis Samuel was still a true freshman, so that tandem - however legendary the individual parts were - wasn't throttling like the seasoned 2024 pair is expected to. Carlos Hyde and Braxton Miller were electric together, but one of those guys was a quarterback.
At risk of infuriating my elders, this season could step on Archie Griffin/Pete Johnson territory - nearly 2,400 yards combined 49 years ago. Two running backs like this playing together at their respective crescendos is extremely rare. This could be quite special.
And yet running backs coach Tony Alford, the dean of the offensive staff heading into what would have been his tenth season in Columbus, declined the opportunity in favor of a lateral move to the program his former employer was conceived to dethrone over a century ago. Let's be nice, this is Anakin Skywalker-adjacent betrayal - with adjacent doing some extremely heavy lifting.
It may seem weird, but the most qualified players and coaches to play and coach at Ohio State or Michigan are players and coaches who have already played and coached at Michigan or Ohio State. The only way to get it is to have already gotten it. Judkins playing in two Egg Bowls while in Oxford isn't preparation for the sickness he's embraced.
This is a different kind of grudge and a blood feud that's hard to imagine anywhere else. Alford gets it. He's not the first or last native Ohioan to empty out his closet, forever.
Like Alford, Ed Warinner coached at Notre Dame and Ohio State before taking a job on the Michigan staff.
There’s a reason Bump Elliott's successor in Ann Arbor came from the Woody Hayes coaching tree 55 years ago - it was a shrewd talent acquisition strategy; immersive emperor training for a very specific type of emperor role. Position coaches, namely the journeyman types - guys who believe they're deranged enough to be major FBS program head coach material but are weighed down by being too normal - are different.
They're not home run hires. They're like, ground rule double hires. You take them when you can.
Poaching from one side of the most intimate, loving and respectful rivalry in sports into the other from the assistants' pool isn't quite the coup. That's Alford, who has not been shy about his head coaching aspirations.
That's also Ed Warinner, Ohio State's best offensive line coach of the current millennium and also its worst offensive coordinator. That's Greg Mattison, who just wanted to finish a formidable career with a better taste in his mouth. It's not former Ohio State captain Gary Moeller, another Buckeye casualty of Michigan's shrewd talent acquisition strategy from 1969. That was a slow-moving coup.
Alford saw the writing on the wall in January when his colleagues were getting promoted and extended all around him, prior to Ryan Day hiring Chip Kelly to lead and revamp a largely stale rushing game with something the word upgrade doesn't quite capture. Obligatory reminder (NSFW):
Ohio State spent half of the 2023 season complementing boundary runs from running backs that had no chance of succeeding with equally doomed boundary runs from wide receivers. Exhale.
Kelly acolyte Justin Frye coordinated that rushing attack while Alford provided most the leading roles - some of whom have been truly great (JK Dobbins, healthy Henderson, Trey Sermon for two glorious outings) while the others have ranged from okay to not okay.
As a recruiter Alford's outcomes were erratic. His grade card was consistently As and Ds.
So he had a couple of career crossroads options, which included coaching through his existing deal at Ohio State with a generational tandem along with tutelage and instruction from a renown running game innovator and head coach. In nine months we'll know how favorable of a jumping-off point that could have been for him.
Instead he chose to start fresh with a newly-empty nest at home and mobility he had not had since his kids were too small to remember seeing their stuff being loaded into moving trucks. Alford went to the national champions on the other side of the rivalry where he's as fluent with the obsessive animus as he is with the recruiting footprint.
Strong hire. Culture guy. Players' coach. Unimpeachable experience. Checkered outcomes.
It feels venomous because you don't need to google Ohio State vs. Michigan to understand appreciate how switching religions is received among the dueling parishioners. But it feels vindictive because Alford's decision contains non-zero amounts of contempt for the treatment of his service.
Any fear Alford is smuggling state secrets to Ann Arbor is a failure to appreciate the gift his departure delivers to Ohio State. It's not as though the plan to beat Michigan had been working.
Urban Meyer brought him in before Ryan Day showed up to coach quarterbacks. Day went from peer to supervisor a few seasons later. Career ascension took place all around him at Internal Promotion University, where former underlings like Day, Parker Fleming, Keenan Bailey, Brian Hartline, Corey Dennis and even Jake Diebler have gotten bigger desks while keeping the same W-2.
Alford was an FBS running backs coach back when Day became a college student. It's not that his career path stagnated after Meyer's tenure ended. He just didn't benefit from the internal promotion wave which has swept the athletic department in that span.
We grade ourselves on a curve and he likely has a loftier opinion of his contributions than his supervisor did. Alford could have gone anywhere to do his current role in different colors. He chose there and those colors. His departure contains a non-zero quantity of satisfaction.
He won't require much onboarding to Michigan's special sauce - he's quite familiar with their organizational goals because they mirror those of his now-former employer. Beat That Team, win the conference and collect the largest trophy possible.
The fear he's taking state secrets to Ann Arbor is a failure to appreciate the gift his departure delivers to Ohio State, and that shouldn't be read in a salty tone. Organizational turnover is healthy and the Buckeyes have not had enough of it until recently. It's not as though the plan to beat Michigan had been working.
As for what the generational running back tandem Alford leaves behind will be tasked to do in his absence, it's a safe bet they'll be required to move the chains with more boundary runs. Obligatory reminder (NSFW):
It's good for everyone involved, from Alford to Ohio State's running backs room to Kelly and Frye - who coached top-15 rushing attacks in consecutive years while working together at UCLA relying on personnel their current employer would largely avoid recruiting.
Henderson and Judkins will be asked to be the best versions of themselves, splitting a load they're both happy to share, while reinvigorating a rushing attack and position room that's been clunky and soft tissue injury-prone since the world stop wiping down its groceries.
As for the recently departed Ohio State coach taking his mastery of running back coaching to Ann Arbor, maybe he'll be able to break through following his 30th season and ninth employer on the collegiate circuit. He brings rivalry fluency to the tune of five sets of Gold Pants with him to the other side.
That's the same number Warinner brought with him. One more than Bo had. Good luck!
