Ohio State expects to compete for a national championship in college football this fall and five-star Alabama transfer Caleb Downs is slated to play a big role. Apparently, his role may be two-fold!
The Buckeyes are experimenting with a Travis Hunter-like role for the rising sophomore.
Downs, a top-10 recruit in the Class of 2023, is a defensive back by trade. He became the first freshman in Crimson Tide history to lead the team in tackles during his lone season in Tuscaloosa and ranked fourth in the SEC with 107 total stops. He also added 3.5 tackles-for-loss, two interceptions, five passes defended, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery and was a second-team All-American.
Downs hit the transfer portal shortly after Nick Saban’s decision to retire and ultimately ended up in Columbus. There was a good chunk of NIL money involved with the move, which of course is the norm in today’s era of college football. A real belief that this team can go all the way also played a role.
Regardless of how things went down, Ohio State landed five-star defensive back Caleb Downs.
And now they are moving him to running back. Kind of.
With the 12-team College Football Playoff, teams with title hopes expect to play a lot more games than before. The Buckeyes will play 12 regular season games. They may also play in the Big Ten Championship. Should things go according to plan, they will then need to play at least three additional games to hoist the trophy.
Ohio State could end up playing 16 games. It could even play 17.
That is not what these college athletes are used to and head coach Ryan Day is trying to get ahead of any issues before they arise. He announced a surprising move during a 20-minute press conference on Tuesday. Should the decision pay off, it means that things went horribly wrong.
Caleb Downs is playing running back.
The Buckeyes have, arguably, the best running back room in the country this year. Two-time All-Big-Ten honoree TreVeyon Henderson chose to return instead of going pro. Two-time All-SEC selection Quinshon Judkins transferred-in from Ole Miss during the offseason.
Depth is a little bit of a concern behind those two.
Four-star freshman James Peoples and three-star freshman Sam Williams-Dixon are the next two in line. They are freshman. Walk-on redshirt sophomore T.C. Caffey was impressive during the spring, but he is not supposed to have a prominent role and would probably be up next behind the two first-years.
It isn’t entirely clear how that depth chart might look just yet. All we know for certain is that Henderson and Judkins are the guys.
Downs is the “break in case of emergency” plan.
We started having conversations with Caleb during the recruting process of him doing a little bit of running back as well. It’s something he wanted to do. We’ve been having him in the meetings and some of the individual drills — as a possibility there if he’s needed down the road — to continue to build depth at the position.
— Ryan Day
The move is rather surprising, even knowing the reason for it. Peoples, Williams-Dixon and Caffey are there. Depth really could be a much bigger issue.
We feel like if you have four strong running backs going into it, then that’s gonna be enough to carry this season. The quarterbacks will run the ball more this season, so that should take some carries away from them. James and Sam are gonna have to step up.
— Ryan Day
Downs’ future at running back is a day-by-day thing and Day is going to see where it goes as it goes.
We don’t have a specific plan now, but we want to introduce him to (the running back position) …
It’s healthy. You’re seeing it from the other side of the ball. This time of year, you can get away with that a little bit and a little bit in the preseason. Where it goes, we’ll see, but you just never know. We’re trying to put some contingency plans in place because it could be a long season.
— Ryan Day
Should Caleb Downs see legitimate time at running back this season, something has gone terribly wrong. Ohio State (and its fanbase) will be far happier if he plays only on defense.