Ohio State football: 5 questions the Buckeyes must answer in 2020
4. Ohio State football questions: Can Trey Sermon be the featured back?
With the departure of J.K. Dobbins for the NFL, the Buckeyes were always going to be losing a dynamic playmaker with vast experience in the offense. The silver lining in the situation, however, was that Ohio State had a readymade replacement on the roster in Master Teague III, who ran for over 700 yards in a backup role a season ago.
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Unfortunately for Day’s club, Teague suffered a torn Achilles this offseason, an injury that will sideline him for the entirety of the 2020 season. Now OSU must find a rusher to replace what Dobbins, who rushed for 2,003 yards and 21 touchdowns and added 247 receiving yards last year, without their best option available to them this year.
If there’s any solace that Ohio State fans can take from this, it’s the fact that they were able to add former Oklahoma running back Trey Sermon to the mix as a graduate transfer. In his first two seasons with the Sooners, the running back rushed 285 times for 1,691 yards and 28 touchdowns but fell out of favor last season, leading to his departure after his junior year.
Sermon, however, has never been asked to shoulder a workload like he could have in 2020, especially with Marcus Crowley dealing with injuries this offseason as well. Unless a youngster steps up to form a committee with Sermon, then we could see the rushing attack take a step back, even with Fields’ ability as a running quarterback.