COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ask Tony Alford how he feels TreVeyon Henderson has played in his second year as an Ohio State football player, and he’ll speak highly of him.
The running backs coach will point out all the good the former five-star recruit has done this season, even if it’s often been in a small sample size as he’s dealt with injuries. It hasn’t been perfect, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t quality.
Some people might be remised because he hasn’t had some of the big runs that he had earlier last year, but he’s still doing some good things,” Alford said. “Is there room for improvement? Sure, but there’s room for improvement in everybody’s game. But he has not played poorly whatsoever. He might be a little frustrated because there haven’t been the long, dynamic 50-, 70-yard runs, but those will come.”
Henderson has carried the ball 50 times this season for 318 yards and three touchdowns. That’s 6.4 yards per carry. That’s 0.4 yards down from last season and 3.2 yards down from where he was last season through the first five weeks against like competition. Both schedules feature a Big Ten West opponent who’s underachieving (Minnesota and Wisconsin), Rutgers, two Group of Five opponents and a non-conference opponent (Oregon and Notre Dame).
The first concern someone would have about Henderson coming into year two is if he is at all in danger of repeating J.K. Dobbins’ 2018 woes. Dobbins spent that year as a former top-50 recruit sharing the load with someone who wasn’t that in Mike Weber. He still ended the season with 1,000 rushing yards, but it often looked out of whack and was a drop-off from a freshman season in 2017 where he came out swinging with 181 yards against Indiana and never looked back.
It wasn’t until after the season that Dobbins finally admitted how much he hated the two-back system. He got back to being the workhorse in 2019, and the result was the first 2,000-yard season in OSU history. But Alford assured that Dobbins’ situation isn’t applicable here.
For starters, Henderson isn’t fighting the idea of a two-back system like Dobbins often was. He signed up to be part of it when he committed to a class that already had Evan Pryor in it as a top-100 recruit. He also doesn’t think he’s having any type of sophomore slump. There are things he needs to do better, but they aren’t significant things that have left him incapable of playing at the level he was at last season when healthy.
“Some of the vision things and attacking second- and third-level defenders,” Alford said. “Making some guys miss in the back end of the defense. But a lot of that’s on me. I could probably be doing some things that can help more as far as drill work and things like that.”
Henderson has basically missed two of the last three games if you take away an opening series against Toledo. Meanwhile, Miyan Williams’ development — and more importantly, his availability — has allowed him to shine, even turning in a record five-touchdown day against Rutgers.
Williams’ play is a good thing for OSU, but it should be looked at as some referendum on Henderson for what he’s not doing. We might still be waiting on the home runs he hit time after time in 2021 to emerge again, but Alford is far from displeased with what he’s seen from him so far.
He’s also not going to sit by and watch while anyone tries to say otherwise.
“I’m not gonna allow people to paint a picture of this kid’s not playing well,” Alford said. “We’re not a finished product. We’re in week five.”
What else did we learn from Alford?
• Williams was upset with him during the recruiting process. Had been on the back burner while OSU pursued other backs, then the decision got thrown back in Williams’ lap after he committed to Iowa State. An important moment was when Alford went and visited and apologized: “I had the wrong impression of you. I was wrong.”
• Called Williams “rugged and he is a violent player. We saw that in high school. Saw that his true freshman year.”
• TC Caffey was the first walk-on he recruited as Alford would a scholarship player.
• On Dallan Hayden and when he noticed he was flashing: “During training camp when Evan went down that afforded Dallan to get more reps. With more reps, you get seen more and have opportunities to flash and make plays. The rep count (going) up for him helped him. Now he’s getting chances to play and get experiences he may not have had otherwise. I won’t say it was a benefit, but it afforded him more opportunities, and he started to show up.”
• Alford on the Henderson-Williams dynamic: “We have two guys capable of being starters here. Two guys capable of playing championship-level football.”
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