Ohio State Treating Injuries With "An Abundance Of Caution” Ahead Of Big Ten Opener

The Buckeyes held multiple starters out of Saturday's 77-21 win over Toledo, while several others left with injuries.

While junior wide receivers Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Julian Fleming returned to the lineup in Ohio State’s 77-21 win over Toledo, there were several late scratches on Saturday night.

That includes fifth-year senior safeties Tanner McCalister and Josh Proctor and redshirt freshman defensive tackle Michael Hall, who were not among the 10 players initially listed as unavailable prior to the game.

The Buckeyes also saw sophomore running back TreVeyon Henderson, fifth-year senior cornerback Cameron Brown and junior linebacker DeaMonte “Chip” Trayanum head to the locker room at various points of the game and not return.

None of the aforementioned absences or injuries had an impact on Saturday’s result, obviously. But there’s no doubt the overall health of the team is worth monitoring heading into next week’s Big Ten opener against Wisconsin.

“There’s a handful of those kind of things that are going on, but we haven’t seen anything that we think is going to be long term,” Day said. “We’ll kind of regroup after tonight and figure out where everything is at, but this was a situation with a lot of the guys that we just wanted to – out of an abundance of caution – make sure they were 100 percent before we put them in the game.”

That was the approach Ohio State took with Smith-Njigba, who suffered a hamstring injury in the season opener against Notre Dame, as well as Fleming, who missed the first two weeks with an undisclosed injury, and both looked back to full strength in a limited amount of playing time.

Smith-Njigba finished the game with two catches for 33 yards, while Fleming caught three passes for 23 yards and two scores, and neither played in the second half as the Buckeyes led 42-14 at intermission.

“We got them some reps and then kind of got them out of there, so that was good,” Day said. “But there were a few guys that were struggling with a couple things, so we decided to hold on.”

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