Ohio State will shortly begin fall camp to prepare for the 2024 college football season and when they do so their depth will be a bit short at a key position.
Backup running back T.C. Caffey will miss this season with a torn ACL, head coach Ryan Day confirmed on Tuesday at Big Ten Media Day.
The injury hurts the Buckeyes due to Caffey being the only other running back with college experience behind the two-headed monster of Quinshon Judkins and TreVeyon Henderson.
“Since we lost TC for the year, it’s something that we have to make sure that we’re on top of and building contingency plans,” Day said. “I don’t think we have to sound the alarm just yet, but it’s good to have things down the road that we can go to if we need to.”
The Buckeyes have freshman running backs James Peoples and Sam Williams-Dixon who will now have to be relied on at some point. Ohio State will ride their top two backs a ton but will need more depth in case of injury and in blowout games.
In 2022, Caffey had 10 rushes for 66 yards and a touchdown. Against Toledo that season, Caffey ran the ball six times for 57 yards and the touchdown. The Buckeyes lost running back Dallan Hayden to the transfer portal after the spring, which was a pretty big shot to their depth.
“We didn’t really know who TC was going into that year a couple years ago,” Day explained. “He actually filled a need for us and had a touchdown in that [Toledo] game. Hopefully, we can get a little bit of that there and get some carries out of that. If not, yeah, we’ll have to figure out what a contingency plan might be.”
Safety Caleb Downs is one player that has been talked about filling in snaps at running back but that could be a risky move for the Buckeyes. Realistically, the Buckeyes will be fine as long as Henderson and Judkins stay healthy. However, if things go south they could be scrambling for more depth to step up.
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