How Ohio State football’s Denzel Burke forced Kerry Coombs to bend the rules about playing freshman cornerbacks

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- If it were up to Ohio State defensive coordinator Kerry Coombs, he’d never start a true freshman at cornerback.

Regardless of position, you never want to put a freshman with no experience in a situation where he can make a mistake. At cornerback, that becomes more of an emphasis because mistakes often mean giving up points. When you add a pandemic that takes away valuable teaching time, his stance was cemented even more last season, when he didn’t sideline any of his older players when the secondary struggled.

“It’s easy to sub an interior defensive lineman and let them get experience,” Coombs said last season. “It’s much harder on the islands of the secondary to do that. ... If a defensive lineman steps to the wrong gap on something that’s one issue. If a secondary player makes a mistake it can result in points.”

The 2021 season is supposed to see things back to normal. But it put Coombs in a position where he had to break one of his few rules about cornerbacks. A combination of circumstance and ability is why Denzel Burke found himself on the field when the defense took their first snaps.

With projected starters Sevyn Banks and Cameron Brown sidelined by injury, Burke was more than prepared for his first taste of the college game even if he lacked experience and Minnesota would certainly look to attack him.

“The other guys always find the freshman first,” Coombs said. “We had long conversations about that. The guy on the other sideline wearing the headset knows who the freshman is. So you better be ready because they’re gonna come after you.

“He doesn’t strike me as a player in a practice environment that has shown fear, which is huge. I talked to him at length about being nervous. Because if he said he wasn’t, he’d be lying, which would be a much bigger problem. Being nervous just means it’s important to you, and it was important to him to play well.”

Burke was a four-star athlete in the 2021 recruiting class who’d never taken a single snap as a cornerback at Saguaro High School in Arizona, though he knew that’s what he would play in Columbus. He spent his time playing wide receiver, where he was expecting to have a major senior season.

But he injured his left shoulder in the season opener bringing an end to his high school career.

“It really hit me hard,” Burke told cleveland.com last October. “I really wanted to play my last year. I was really looking forward to it. I’m a captain, too, so that role of just being a leader for my guys, and letting my game talk for itself, it kind of got cut short because of this.”

He arrived in January knowing he’d have to learn a new position despite not having played in months. But he took advantage of the opportunity. Brown was again out, still recovering from a torn Achilles he suffered against Penn State the prior season while Banks dealt with undisclosed health problems.

That left plenty of first-team reps for the younger guys. Every time the secondary was brought up, Burke’s name was typically one of the first players mentioned.

“He’s a pro to me,” Chris Olave said. “In camp, he’s running with the first team, battling me and Garrett (Wilson). Talking mess, playing with his swag. … That’s why I keep telling him to keep working. He’s gonna be great. I can’t wait to see that.”

His early success carried over into preseason camp, making him the first freshman to lose his black stripe. It took him four days to do so. A chance for the media to watch parts of practices only confirmed what players and coaches had spent months saying.

The word of mouth that’s followed Burke is why it wasn’t surprising that he played 63 snaps last week. It also won’t be surprising that he’s still a regular in the rotation whenever Banks and Brown return. What’s surprising is a wide receiver-turned-cornerback in the program for only nine months is the one forcing Coombs to rethink his philosophy.

“He had a really good spring so we knew we had something,” Coombs said. “He had a really good offseason and he continued to play all through training camp. He continued to line up and play man-to-man against some of the best receivers you will ever see and he competes.”

The Buckeyes signed six defensive backs in its 2021 class, including two top 100 cornerbacks in Jakailin Johnson and Jordan Hancock. Both showed up this summer, eliminating them from consideration for this achievement. Burke ranked fifth among that group, and the one he was rated higher than was Jaylen Johnson, who is out for the season with a torn ACL.

Then there are second-year guys Ryan Watts and Lejond Cavazos, who were assumed to be next in line. But it was Burke who separated himself.

Ohio State isn’t the first high-level Power 5 program to open a season with a true freshman at cornerback. Derek Stingley did so for LSU in 2019 and earned Freshman All-American honors for a national champion. Eli Ricks did it the next season in Baton Rouge and had similar individual results.

But both of those guys were five stars, and Stingley is the highest-rated cornerback and third-highest rated player LSU’s ever signed. They were supposed to do that. Burke is surpassing expectations while flashing what the future may hold.

“(He’s) got a lot of growth and a lot of improvement ahead of him,” Coombs said. “But he had a great camp, he had a great night Thursday night and we’re looking for more of those in the future.”

Every so often, you have to be willing to break your own rule if it means potentially tapping into something special. A lack of options combined with the equity built in the offseason allowed Coombs to do that with Burke. The result was three tackles, three pass breakups and a 37.5 completion percentage in Minneapolis. He was targeted on eight Tanner Morgan passes and only committed one pass interference penalty.

Not a bad day for someone who’s technically still learning his position.

“Obviously, his best football is ahead of him,” head coach Ryan Day said. “He’s just a young true freshman out there playing in his first game, and it’s a conference game on the road. You talk about getting thrown to the fire. But he’s competed since he’s gotten here. He practices really, really hard, and he deserved to start.”

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