Ohio St. lacks experience

The Buckeyes have only 12 seniors on their football team this season.

COLUMBUS (AP) — It’s that time of year when football teams blab on and on about how important their senior leadership will be.

You don’t hear that coming out of Ohio State.

That’s because seniors are on the endangered list for the Buckeyes.

By extension, no one knows for certain if there will be a commensurate shortfall of that hard-to-measure intangible called leadership.

A scan of Ohio State’s roster shows only 12 seniors among the 110 players in fall camp. Compare that with the 40 players who are freshmen in terms of eligibility.

“I know on the defensive line, we’ve only got one and that’s Brett Daly,” defensive coordinator Jim Heacock said. “The linebacking corps, we’ve got Larry Grant and Curtis Terry. On the back end, we just don’t have that.”

Offense more inexperienced

And it’s not just on defense. If anything, the offense has even fewer players entering their final year.

Moreover, of that dirty dozen of seniors, only one, offensive tackle Kirk Barton, was a starter a year ago and just two others, Grant and Terry, saw substantial playing time. Daly, long snappers Dimitrios Makridis and Jackson Haas, running back Trever Robinson, receiver Brent Ullery, fullback Tyler Whaley, fullback Dionte Johnson, defensive back De’Angelo Haslam and offensive lineman Daniel Dye have seen some action but to little effect.

In addition to scarlet and gray, maybe the Buckeyes should add green.

Then again, maybe this whole senior leadership thing is overrated. At least that’s what this year’s crop of players thinks.

“Hopefully, you kind of lead by example. You try to do the right things and hope that other people can follow you,” All-American linebacker James Laurinaitis said. “We have a lot of great leaders on defense.”

Laurinaitis — sort of the strong, silent Gary Cooper-type of a leader — then proceeded to mention just about everybody on the two-deep roster as an example of how much on-field guidance the Buckeyes have.

Leadership spread around

“I could have named off everyone because everyone contributes in their own way of being a leader,” he said. “That’s something you need to see. When you have that, it only makes the team better.”

Maybe so. There’s no question that the Buckeyes have a passel of young, talented players who are itching to get on the field. It’s just that there almost have to be growing pains for a team that loses 99 percent of its passing yards, two-thirds of its rushing and receiving yardage, 32 percent of its tackles and 42 percent of its sacks from last year’s 12-1 squad.

Even Tressel isn’t sure who his leaders are as the Buckeyes prep for their opener Sept. 1 against Youngstown State. But he doesn’t believe they have to be seniors.

“When our team stood up to introduce themselves at the first team meeting, the senior group stands up and it’s not very big,” Tressel said. “And then the junior group stands up and it goes for, like, three counties. It’s not like we’re without guys who have been here and understand what the challenges are going to be.”

Most of top names missing

The Buckeyes’ lack of seniors might also be seen as a further indictment of all those who rate recruiting classes. Most of the top names are missing from what was considered one of the top recruiting classes in the nation in February 2003: defensive linemen Sian Cotton and Brandon Maupin, running back-defensive back Ira Guilford, wide receiver Devin Jordan, tight end Louis Irizarry (who transferred to Youngstown State) and linebacker Reggie Smith, just to name a few.

There are a variety of reasons for such a small senior class. Some, as happens with the general student population at any university, just washed out academically or transferred closer to home. Some got into trouble and left the team. Some got tired of the injuries, or the long days.

So in addition to learning the positions and plays, the Buckeyes are learning something else in the heat of August — who to look to when times are hard.

“Those young guys are going to have to be leaders,” Heacock said. “It’s easy to ask seniors to be leaders, but it’s a little bit different. Throughout this camp we’ve got to find out who our true leaders are, not just the verbal ones but the true leaders on Saturdays. I don’t know if we know that yet.”