OSU safety Bell’s game matching his mouth

By DAVID BRIGGS

Toledo Blade

COLUMBUS

Ohio State safety Vonn Bell said he is like a silent assassin, preferring to keep his profile low even as his fame rises.

His teammates politely disagree.

‘He ain’t no silent assassin,’ cornerback Eli Apple said.

Come to think of it, there is nothing quiet about Bell at all.

‘If anybody knows Vonn Bell, he’s always going to be the one talking,’ Apple said with a laugh. ‘He used to get me in trouble because he’d be back there talking [to the offense]. He talks more than anyone, so I’d always have to back him up.’

Reluctantly, though, Apple concedes: ‘He does ball.’

If Bell talks a big game, the junior preseason All-American hopes to play a bigger one this season.

By the end of last year, Bell had few peers. He finished the season with 92 tackles ‘” a single-season total surpassed in the past century only by Mike Doss among Buckeyes safeties ‘” and a Big Ten-high six interceptions. Four of those came over the last six games as Ohio State buzz-sawed toward a national title.

Now, Bell is the anchor of a secondary that has evolved over the past year from frightful to feared. The Buckeyes return three starters, including one of the nation’s top safety tandems in Bell and rangy junior Tyvis Powell.

‘They’re really the generals of the defense,’ Ash said. ‘They make all the calls, they make all the adjustments, they cover up a lot of stuff. Say, if a D-lineman is out of a gap or a linebacker has [misread] something, if you have really good safeties who tackle well, they take care of it. They get things done.

‘You look at us last year, I think we might have been the No. 1 team in the country as far as fewest big plays allowed. It’s because those guys could tackle and cover stuff up.’

And make big plays of their own. For Bell, his late-season burst was overdue.

A five-star prospect from Rossville, Ga. ‘” a town of 4,000 pressed against the Tennessee state line ‘” he arrived in Columbus expecting to be an immediate hit. Instead, Bell spent most of his freshman season on the sidelines, making his debut start in the Orange Bowl only after the Buckeyes’ pass defense had disintegrated.

Bell insists his confidence never wobbled, and that is not hard to believe. Even then, he was the self-appointed headmaster of what he calls the Vonn Bell Academy, where, as Apple said, the curriculum is ‘nothing but interceptions.’ But while his frustration grew ‘” and his older brother criticized the coaching staff on Twitter ‘” Bell realized in hindsight he needed to improve.

‘I was very inconsistent, like the coaches said,’ he said. ‘I had a lot to learn and I grew from a lot. So it really helped me to now, as a player now.’

Last year, Bell underwent surgery for a sprained MCL in the spring and began the season slowly. Steadily, though, his game came to do the talking, too.

More than anything, he showed an innate ability to magnetize to the ball. Ash said, ‘Good things seem to always happen to Vonn Bell. He just has that ‘Àúit’ and he makes things happen. Toward the end of the year,’ Powell said, ‘he was doing a good job of setting the quarterback up, thinking he was going one way. He’d come back and make a play on the ball.’

This year, Bell looks to entrench his name among the lineage of stars to pass through the Ohio State secondary. Of recent vintage, since Shawn Springs was selected by the Seattle Seahawks with the third overall pick of the 1997 NFL draft, seven Buckeyes defensive backs have followed him in the first round. (Antoine Winfield, Ahmed Plummer, Nate Clements, Chris Gamble, Donte Whitner, Malcolm Jenkins, and Bradley Roby.)

Bell is projected to be the next, but not before he hopes to deliver an encore.

His six interceptions last year were the most by an Ohio State player since Derek Ross had seven in 2001. Asked if he would have over or under seven this fall, Bell smiled widely and said, ‘Over.’ (Mike Sensibaugh and Craig Cassady share the single-season school record with nine in 1969 and 1975, respectively.)

‘I’m still not done,’ Bell said. ‘I don’t worry about all the [attention]. I just go out there and work every day. I’m like a silent assassin.’