Ohio State Football: C.J. Stroud regrets not running more

For the past two years, Ohio State football fans have been tearing their hair out for one specific reason. That reason was watching C.J. Stroud sit back in the pocket with no one in front of him and still not take off and run. He was too stubborn to take the yards that the defense gave him.

Stroud even went so far as to say that he doesn’t get paid to run the ball at the next level, that was the running back’s job. He was so averse to running the ball for some reason. Fans didn’t want him to be the next Justin Fields, they just wanted him to take the easy yards.

There were only two games in his career in which Stroud showed any sort of willingness to run the ball as a starter; the Northwestern game and the Georgia game. He ran in the Northwestern game because the wind made it impossible to pass. The Georgia game was the sort of thing we’d been wanting him to do his entire career.

C.J. Stroud says he wishes he ran the ball more during his Ohio State football career.

Fast forward to the Combine, and Stroud was asked a myriad of questions on Friday in Indy. One of those questions was about the fear of running the ball for whatever reason. It was then revealed by Stroud that he actually regrets not running the ball more in his tenure with the Buckeyes.

Stroud said that he is a capable runner and that he wished he showed that off more in college. Well, why didn’t you??? Fans and media kept grilling you about that one thing for the last two years. Stroud even answered multiple questions about it during the year and double-downed on now doing it.

Maybe that’s something Stroud would have done if he actually would have come back this year like he wanted to. We’ll never know. It’s just frustrating to hear him say that after everyone wanted him to run the ball more during his career.

Maybe we’ll see more of the Georgia game when he gets into the NFL. Only time will tell.