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Four-star Ohio offensive tackle Sam Greer commits to Ohio State.
It was apparent from the beginning that Sam Williams-Dixon was conflicted about what he should do after his first season at Ohio State.
When Williams-Dixon entered the transfer portal in December, in between the first and second games of Ohio State’s College Football Playoff run, he initially planned to leave the team immediately to focus on finding a new home. But Williams-Dixon quickly had a change of heart and opted to stay with the Buckeyes for the rest of the season instead.
A little over three weeks after the Buckeyes won the national championship, Williams-Dixon had another change of heart, opting to withdraw his name from the transfer portal and stay at Ohio State.
Ultimately, Williams-Dixon realized he didn’t want to leave Ohio State. He said his decision to enter the portal was driven by unspecified outside influences, and he realized he needed to decide what was best for himself rather than allowing other people to make those decisions for him.
“It was just me listening to the wrong people, for real,” Williams-Dixon said last week. “I had to take care of my life. I didn’t have control of it, now I’ve got control of it and I’m doing my own thing.
“I didn't want to leave … I love it here, man.”
Williams-Dixon isn’t naturally talkative, and he said that kept him from building a close relationship with Ohio State running backs coach Carlos Locklyn last year after he replaced Tony Alford, the coach who recruited Williams-Dixon to the Buckeyes. Since his return from the portal, however, Williams-Dixon says his relationship with Locklyn has gotten much stronger, as he realized he needs to speak up to his position coach about his concerns.
“I feel like me coming back made it way better. We had a way better connection as soon as I got back,” Williams-Dixon said. “When Alford left, it was a little shaky for real, that whole year. But really when I came back, me and Lock sat down and had that man-to-man talk.”
Locklyn, who says many of his conversations with Williams-Dixon haven’t been about football but about life, isn’t holding Williams-Dixon’s decision to enter the portal against him. He thinks his style of coaching took some getting used to for Williams-Dixon, but he’s happy with the rapport they’re building now.
“Sam's a young guy, we've all been young, we've all made quick decisions,” Locklyn said on March 7. “I’m the new guy coming in this spring, April (of last year), the guy that coached him left, and he's a young man, so things were a little bit different for him. But Coach Day speaks about this all the time, tough love. I give them boys in there tough love. I'm real, I'm honest with them, and it took some getting used to. I don't lie to them, I tell them the truth. So I think he's quite familiar with who I am now. But I love the kid, and he works hard, and like I said, he's a good kid.”
Williams-Dixon acknowledges he had a lot of growing up to do as a freshman. While he knew he’d have a lot to learn when he arrived at Ohio State, that didn’t make the adjustment from high school to college easy.
“It's very different,” Williams-Dixon said. “You're not going to be being up late at night. You got to be locked in. You got to know when to go to sleep early. You're going to have classes at night. … Stuff that you didn't do in high school, you're doing it here. You're going to meetings late – especially in fall camp, you got meetings late, you’re here all day. It’s real (the challenge of going from high school to college).”
“It was just me listening to the wrong people, for real.”– Sam Williams-Dixon on entering the transfer portal before returning to Ohio State
Now that he’s one of only two returning scholarship players in the running back room along with fellow second-year back James Peoples, though, Williams-Dixon knows he has to prove he’s someone Ohio State can rely on.
“I feel like I do have to be a leader. I'm one of the oldest people in the room, so I got to be that person,” Williams-Dixon said.
With TreVeyon Henderson and Quinshon Judkins leading last year’s running back depth chart, Williams-Dixon didn’t play much as a true freshman, appearing in just three games. But he averaged more than seven yards per carry in limited action, gaining 53 yards on just seven attempts.
He’s still not likely to be one of Ohio State’s top two running backs this year, as Peoples and West Virginia transfer CJ Donaldson are expected to lead the running back depth chart. But Williams-Dixon could be the No. 3 running back behind them, though he faces competition from true freshmen Bo Jackson, Anthony “Turbo” Rogers and Isaiah West.
Williams-Dixon believes he can be a weapon for Ohio State’s offense.
“Personally, I think I can definitely make an impact,” said Williams-Dixon, a three-star recruit in the 2024 class out of the Columbus suburb of Pickerington. “I can definitely get on the field, prove to myself that I can do this.”
But now that he’s recommitted himself to Ohio State after nearly leaving the program, Williams-Dixon says he’s ready to embrace whatever role he has on this year’s team.
“I'm just going to be a team player and help the team out as much as I can,” Williams-Dixon said.
