Ohio State football: Jaxon Smith-Njigba is finally back

The Ohio State football team has been without its best player for the majority of the season. Jaxon Smith-Njigba has been injured since the first game of the season when he hurt his hamstring against Notre Dame. He tried to play against Toledo, but couldn’t finish the game.

Well folks, he’s finally back. Smith-Njigba will be playing today. We speculated that this was the game that he’d finally return to the field, but we’d heard that before from Ryan Day. I wasn’t going to believe it until he stepped on the field, but multiple reports have come out that he will be playing.

Smith-Njigba isn’t the only one who’s back. Jordan Hancock will be making his season debut in today’s game as well. That’s good because Cam Brown will be out of this game with an injury. Hancock was supposed to be the Buckeyes’ third cornerback this year.

This will be the healthiest that the Ohio State football team has been all season long. The Buckeyes have been snakebit with injuries all year. They have the depth to deal with it, but it would be nice to see what this team can do when it has all of its pieces.

I wonder how the Buckeyes will integrate JSN back into the fold. It won’t matter as much for this game as it will for next week’s clash against Penn State. To be honest though, JSN just needs to get right for the Michigan game at this point. He’ll be needed in that game.

I also am interested to see how many snaps Hancock gets today. I doubt he starts for Brown just because he hasn’t played all year, but I want to know how much he sees the field. This will also be the first time we’ve really seen Hancock play in a game that matters.