Ohio State football: Why have there been so many injuries?

The Ohio State football team is at the mid-point of its season. They have a bye this week, which comes at a perfect time for them. Not only is it the middle of the season, but it gives the Buckeyes a chance to get healthy and recover from all of the injuries they’ve suffered.

If you think that they have suffered more injuries this year than usual, you’re not alone. The Buckeyes have suffered an unusually high number of injuries despite not playing an overly physical game yet. The most physical game was the Notre Dame game in the season-opener.

It seems that most of the injuries that the Buckeyes have been dealing with are soft tissue injuries. Hamstring injuries, knee ligament injuries, and other things of that nature. You don’t even get those from playing in overly-physical games. Those happen because of poor off-season training.

I do think it’s time to take a look at what Coach Mick does in the offseason for his strength and conditioning. Some of Ohio State’s best players have been missing for good chunks of the season due to injury. Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Julian Fleming, and Jordan Hancock have all missed large portions of the season, and JSN and Hancock have missed pretty much all of the season so far.

Evan Pryor tore his ACL before the season started. Kamryn Babb hasn’t played at all. Denzel Burke, Cam Brown, TreVeyon Henderson, Miyan Williams, and Mike Hall have all missed games due to injuries. That’s way too many good players being sidelined.

A lot of these guys should be back on the field after the bye week against Iowa, but this never should have happened in the first place. I think Coach Mick needs to look at how he’s preparing these players for the season and change something.

I’m not saying Marotti should be fired. But if things don’t get better on the injury front, that is something that should be put on the table next season.