Banged Up Buckeyes: How Ohio State Will Handle Miyan Williams' Absence

Ohio State's injury report is getting uncomfortable, with another starter out after an injury during practice this week.

It's Week 6 of the Ohio State football season and I'm pretty sure this is the fifth consecutive week that at least one impact player unexpectedly showed up on the Buckeyes' availability report.

Miyan Williams is the latest Ohio State starter to deal with a setback during training this week and he won't be on the field this afternoon against Michigan State.

Williams has run for 497 yards and eight touchdowns through the first five games of the season, but the junior tailback from Cincinnati racked up 290 of those yards and seven of his touchdowns over the last two weeks against Wisconsin and Rutgers.

Sources tell BuckeyesNow that Williams got banged up during practice this week and that his injury is not expected to be a long-term ordeal. But that doesn't make it any less frustrating - for him, for the team and certainly for OSU fans.

I have to admit, I'm growing a bit concerned.

Star wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba has hardly played this year after tweaking his hamstring against Notre Dame early in the season-opener. He's unavailable again today.

Sophomore sensation TreVeyon Henderson has looked really good as the team's primary running back when he's been on the field, but he's been slowed up by an ankle/foot injury. Henderson is a really talented player, but he's had to deal with a number of ailments during his young career.

He currently ranks second nationally in yards per carry (7.0) among players with 100-or-more carries in 2021. But he missed nearly the entire Toledo game and he reaggravated the injury while warming up last weekend against Rutgers and never played.

TreVeyon Henderson and Miyan Williams make up the best running back tandem in the country, but both have dealt with injuries this year

Ohio State is really banged up in the secondary, a problem which hasn't really improved much since the beginning of the season. Evan Pryor is already out for the season after suffering a knee injury in training camp, so the Buckeyes are suddenly thin at running back.

The expectation is that Henderson will be able to play Saturday, which should help ease Williams' absence. But it underscores a potentially more frustrating issue.

We've heard an awful lot about how tough Tuesday and Wednesday practices are for the Buckeyes. To a man, every player we've asked about it and every coach that's spoken about it says that Tuesday and Wednesday practices are substantially harder than actually playing in games. They do that by design.

On one hand, it's working. Ohio State is dominating its competition this year and the Buckeyes have unquestionably been the tougher team each weekend. In many ways, they look like the best team in college football.

Ohio State head coach Ryan Day looks frustrated as he paces the sideline earlier this season

But are they playing with fire?

I'm not going to pretend to know more than Ryan Day or his coaches and athletic training staff. I trust they know what they're doing and they have all the technology in the world to protect these players.

But there's a tiny part of me that is having trouble ignoring the coincidence here.

Maybe this is just relatively normal and part of the game. Guys get banged up and it's a tough, physical, fast game. In reality, Ohio State has so much depth and is so well-coached that it hasn't felt the pain most other programs would feel when their stars can't play.

Ohio State is a 27-point favorite this afternoon and Miyan Williams' absence isn't going to cost them this game. Michigan State's pass defense has been awful this year and I think C.J. Stroud is primed for another big day through the air. With the Buckeyes on a Bye Week next weekend, there's plenty of reason to play this safe and try to get healthy for the meat of the Big Ten schedule.

Miyan Williams runs for his 5th TD of the game and just tied Ohio State’s school record for rushing touchdowns in a game. Williams has 189 rushing yards and 5 TDs, averaging 9 yards per carry pic.twitter.com/Xx7WjfQRMz

— The Buckeye Nut (@TheBuckeyeNut) October 1, 2022

I'm looking forward to seeing Dallan Hayden get some carries Saturday because I don't think this will entirely be the Henderson show the way last week was dominated by Williams' 5-TD performance.

But for as confident as I am that the Buckeyes can handle life without Miyan and Jaxon today, my level of concern is slowly increasing with some of the nagging injuries that are plaguing the Scarlet and Gray.

It's not full panic mode, but it's also pretty hard to ignore.

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