Ohio State Football needs a better strength and conditioning offseason

Winter is the time of the year when strength and conditioning start for college football programs. It’s the time to get stronger and strengthen your body to prevent injuries. That’s something that’s very important to a team’s success. Just ask the Ohio State football program.

Last season, they were extremely poor at that. They had multiple players suffer soft-tissue injuries in the offseason that lingered into the regular season. They also had multiple players suffer the same type of injuries during the season which hurt their effectiveness.

There’s no reason a hamstring injury should’ve shut down Jaxon Smith-Njigba for the whole year. Jordan Hancock shouldn’t have been hurt all season until the final game. Evan Pryor shouldn’t be tearing his ACL in the off-season. All of these injuries had a huge effect on the Buckeyes.

The Ohio State football program needs to have a better off-season conditioning problem than it did a year ago. They need to be able to come into the start of 2023 healthy and ready to go. Coach Mick needs to rethink some things and keep his guys healthy throughout the year.

Of course, there will always be some freak injuries that you can’t account for. TreVeyon Henderson broke a bone in his foot during the season. Denzel Burke hurt his hand during a game. These are injuries that you can’t really plan for and just happen over the course of the year sometimes.

But there’s no reason that the Buckeyes should have as many soft-tissue injuries as they suffered in 2022. They are going to have less talent on the roster than they did a year ago. This is not a team that can afford to get hit by injuries, especially in the secondary or on the offensive line.

Hopefully, coach Mick can get some better results for these guys this off-season.