Some Injury Updates

Evege will watch his teammates again

Last year, the defensive back position was heavily injured at often times, and even Chimdi Chekwa would play hurt during games. It seems like that trend will continue this year, as more defensive backs are on the injured list.

First up, Donnie Evege is out for the season, due to a knee injury. Evege is not a huge competitor for the cornerback position this year, but he is an essential team member of our special teams unit, and a unit that needs to improve drastically from last year. Last Saturday, Christian Bryant and Adam Griffin, son of Buckeye legend Archie Griffin, were kept out of most drills due to minor injuries. These are expected to be fixed up soon and they should be ready to go. With senior Tyler Moeller still recovering from pectoral surgery, Bryant was working as the first-team Star (nickel back) this spring, hoping to be among the first team.

Tressel said he also expects to have defensive back Corey "Pittsburgh" Brown back at full strength for the fall, but that prognosis might be a little on the optimistic side. The redshirt sophomore out of Monroeville suffered a torn ACL in Ohio State’s 49-0 win over Purdue last October.

He was expected to miss the rest of the season and the spring, but bad knee injuries can often take a year to fully recover. I think he might be able to recover in time for the rest of spring, but if not, he has all of summer to prove to the coaches that this won't affect him.

Finally, Johnathan Newsome is reported to be in Jim Tressel's doghouse, which is ironic seeing as Tressel himself is in the NCAA's doghouse. When people were questioning as to why they hadn't seen a lot of the defensive man. Tressel said there is a good reason why that hasn't happened.

“You know that I've been known to have a dog house, and Jonathan is kind of in and out of it simply because we’re not 100 percent sure he’s doing everything he needs to do to the best of his abilities,” said Tressel, who didn't give specifics but is believed to be academic related. “So therefore he’s only gotten part of the privileges. 

“As soon as he feels and we feel he’s heading in the right direction, he’ll have his opportunity to regain those privileges. … I don’t expect him to be in (the dog house) long, but sometimes we have to do what we think will help a young person learn.”

Interesting stuff, for sure. We'll keep you updated on any other happenings.