Ohio State Football: Cameron Martinez becoming indispensable

The Ohio State football team has gone through its fair share of issues on defense this season. Areas of the defense have finally shown some improvement over the last two weeks, part of which is due to the emergence of new players.

The redshirt freshman cover safety, which is essentially slot cornerback, Cameron Martinez is one player who has done wonders for the Buckeye defense. Martinez got his first shot in Week 3 against Tulsa and shined. He consistently played very tight coverage and made some wonderful plays on the ball. Here’s one play where Martinez defended beautifully.

It was evident how good Martinez looked against Tulsa, which was emphatically reassured by his pick-six late in the fourth quarter. Against Akron, Martinez was rewarded with starting at cover safety. Lathan Ransom was the starter at cover safety prior to Saturday night’s contest versus Akron.

Instead of playing cover safety, Ransom was moved back to a traditional safety spot at free safety. The Buckeyes have been searching for answers at free safety since Josh Proctor went down with a season-ending injury. Ransom backed up Bryson Shaw at free safety throughout the evening against Akron, giving OSU more options at the position.

In the long run, Ransom just simply has more upside and potential than Shaw does at free safety, this will be a key to watch going forward. We knew some players could be moved around to provide depth at free safety, Ransom’s move makes a lot of sense. Ransom has a background playing a traditional safety role and could excel at the new position.

This is one reason why the emergence of Martinez is so important. This has allowed the Buckeyes to move Ransom over the free safety since they feel so confident in Martinez now starting at cover safety. Overall, Martinez’s play has allowed Ohio State to address some remaining concerns on the defense.

Martinez’s newly-found starting role goes along with the recurring theme of freshmen playing well on the defense. He could be one of the key turning points for this defense if it continues to improve. Martinez has given the Ohio State football team an upgrade at cover safety and another potential lockdown defender to go along with Denzel Burke and Cameron Brown in the secondary.