Ohio State Football: There Is No Need To Worry Buckeyes Fans

The Ohio State Buckeyes fell short of their ultimate goal, but their 2017 season is filled with optimism.

The Clemson Tigers just won the college football championship in arguably one of the best football games of all time. To get to that game though, Clemson first shut out The Ohio State Buckeyes a game before that, 31-0.

In 2016, we saw the departure of many fantastic athletes, like Ezekiel Elliot, Joey Bosa, Eli Apple, Taylor Decker and Darron Lee. That large quantity an quality was just in the first round. Although Ohio State is very young, they have lost a number of players once again to the NFL.

So far this offseason, we have seen Pat Elflein, Malik Hooker, Curtis Samuel, Noah Brown, Gaeron Conley, Raekwon McMilan and Marshon Lattimore declare for the 2017 NFL draft. While people may be stat panicking, there is no reason to panic.

This is nothing Urban Meyer hasn’t seen before. At the beginning of the 2016 season, Coach Meyer had to deal with 16 new starters and the Buckeyes ultimately went 11-1 before finishing with a spot in the playoffs.

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Offensively, the Buckeyes are returning their starting quarterback J.T. Barrett and running back Mike Weber will also help out considerably. Not to mention four of the five starting offensive linemen will be returning.

Yet, the biggest question mark though for the offense comes at wide receiver. After the recent announcement Torrance Gibson deciding to transfer to Cincinnati, the position is now an even bigger hole.

Ohio State is returning K.J. Hill, Binjimen Victor, and Paris Campbell. In fact, Hill was fifth on the team in receiving. The Buckeyes will also be adding five-star recruit Trevon Grimes from St. Thomas Aquinas in Florida. Grimes was ranked the fifth best receiver in the 2017 class.

On the offensive side of the ball wide receiver is the biggest question mark. After that, we may see another QB battle happening. Right now the clear-cut starter would be J.T. Barrett even after what we saw against the Clemson Tigers.

After Barrett there is red hirt freshman Joe Burrow, redshirt sophomore Stephen Collier and four star recruit from Bishop Gorman, Tate Martell.

Looking at the defense, people may start worrying but there is really no reason for such a reaction. While losing pretty much the entire defensive secondary, the Buckeyes are also returning players who had received a good amount of playing time. Among those are Denzel Ward and Damon Webb.

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Ward was the primary nickel back when the Buckeyes needed a fifth defensive back. Meanwhile, Webb will continue his role safety. Webb may have been one of the most underrated players in the Buckeyes’ secondary this past year. At the end of the season, Webb was fifth on the team in tackles with 57.

After that, Erick Smith comes to mind. He was a key backup and is a high school teammate of Lattimore. Hopefully Smith can step up and be a key contributor for the defense n 2017.

The Buckeyes are losing their defensive leader McMillan. Replacing him will be Dante Booker who was set to start at the beginning of the year, had his season not been derailed by a knee injury.

Booker really doesn’t express the leadership that McMillan did, but he will make the defense faster as a whole. After Booker at linebacker, the Buckeyes will have Chris Woorley, and Jerome Baker. Both played very well last season.

The best part about the defense is the returning front four players: Sam Hubbard, Nick Bosa, Tyquan Lewis, Michael Hill, and Dre’mont Jones. This defensive front ranked 14th nationally in rushing yards allowed, allowing just 117.8 yards a game.

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That all said, there is a little room for concern. Overall, this Buckeyes team should be just fine.

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