COLUMBUS – The availability of five standout Ohio State players is one of the biggest questions for OSU’s football team with No. 7 Penn State (6-0, 3-0 Big Ten) coming to Ohio Stadium to play the No. 3 Buckeyes (6-0, 3-0 Big Ten) on Saturday.
Wide receiver Emeka Egbuka didn’t make the trip to Purdue, where Ohio State won 41-7 last Saturday. Running backs TreVeyon Henderson and Miyan Williams were unavailable and running back Chip Trayanum was injured in the first half. Cornerback Denzel Burke left the game with an apparent leg injury in the third quarter.
But OSU coach Ryan Day did not want to spend much time talking about the health of those players at his weekly press conference on Tuesday.
“I’m not going to get into that but hopefully we’ll have all those guys back for Saturday,” Day said.
While Day didn’t expend many words on the subject of whether OSU would have a full roster, he does expect a full house. And he appealed to those fans to be loud.
“Gene (OSU athletic director Gene Smith) and I talked about this. One of the things he wanted to do was get everybody in the stadium early just to set the tone. This is one of those games where we’ve got to really create a hostile environment for Penn State, in particular for their offense,” Day said.
“If it’s really loud in the stadium every time their offense has the ball it makes it really difficult to operate. The louder we can be, it doesn’t matter if it’s third down, red zone or short yardage, if they’re operating on the field, the louder we can be, the more hostile we can be, it’s advantage Buckeyes.”
Some other thoughts from Day:
HAYDEN’S FUTURE: The plan for sophomore running back Dallan Hayden was to redshirt this season before he stepped in and led Ohio State’s running game at Purdue with 76 yards.
That plan hasn’t changed but it could depending on circumstances later in the season, Day said.
“We’re still going to do what we think is best to win every game. It was great to see Dallan run out there and play well in the game. That decision doesn’t have to be made right now because we still have a little bit of wiggle room,” he said.
“But if it comes down to winning games we’ll sit down with Dallan and make sure we’re on the same page. I know Dallan wants to play but he wants to do what’s best for him and best for Ohio State.
“When we lost Chip we didn’t panic but it was concerning because now we’d lost three of our starting running backs. The great news was Dallan was able step up in a big way and Xavier Johnson was able to step up in a big way. Xavier played very well in a lot of areas.”
PROTECTING McCORD: Penn State leads the nation with an average of 4.5 sacks per game. Ohio State has allowed 10 sacks this season.
“This will be our biggest challenge to date,” Day said. “They’re very twitchy, very quick. They get after the quarterback at a high level. Both ends (Adisa Isaac, Chop Robinson) are NFL players for sure. They’ve been very productive and disruptive. Our tackles in particular are going to have to do a great job.”
SIMON GETS MORE TIME: Linebacker was pretty much a two-man show for Ohio State last season and earlier this season with Tommy Eichenberg and Steele Chambers dominating the playing time at those two positions.
But senior Cody Simon has played his way into more time on the field, mostly taking the place of Chambers. He was in the game at Purdue for more than twice as many snaps as he had been in any previous OSU game this season .
“They’re neck and neck. Cody is continuing to earn more playing time,” Ohio State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles said on Tuesday. “He plays both positions. He has earned the time and he is extremely valuable at that position.
“Cody brings kind of an added dimension in the run game. He can be more effective in the run game. Steele obviously brings a stronger athleticism and seems to be able to make more plays in the passing game and can cover more space.”
