Nick Bosa was a Freshman All-American last season for the Buckeyes. He finished second on the team with 5.0 sacks and sixth with 7.0 tackles for loss.
On a team with three returning contributors at defensive end in 2016, Bosa forced defensive line coach Larry Johnson to find room for a fourth. He played 332 snaps last season, rotating with Sam Hubbard, Tyquan Lewis, and Jalyn Holmes. On passing downs he would move inside to defensive tackle.
And through it all, never once did he look all that much like a true freshman.
So what is a realistic expectations for an encore?
“That he can be better than he was last year,” Johnson said this spring. “That is really it, one day at a time, one game at a time. I think he has got some good things that he is working on. If he can improve his game as a sophomore, that is all you can ask.”
There is some irony here, however. Being Joey Bosa’s brother, the better Nick gets and the more he makes a name for himself through his play, the more he gets compared to his brother, who is now starring in the NFL.
“I don’t think he is looking to compare himself to Joey, what Joey did his sophomore year,” Johnson said. “He just wants to be a great player and whatever it takes to do it, he is all ears. That is what I like him about him. That is a comparison from the outside. From the inside, he does not walk on the field like, ‘I have got to do this because Joey did it.’ I am telling you, he does not think that way. He wants to be the best, he wants to be Nick Bosa so bad. I think that he knows his big brother is watching, they are really close, but I think that at the end of the day if he can say, ‘This is me, this is who I am, this is my legacy,’ I think that is what he wants.”
Ohio State didn’t sign Nick Bosa because of what his brother did. They signed him because of what he had done. Just as the expectations moving forward aren’t based on anything other than Nick and what he is capable of doing.
That was how Johnson approached last season with Bosa coming off of an ACL tear. They brought him along slowly so as not to have any setbacks. They didn’t want to overload him before he was capable of handling what they were asking him to do.
The results spoke for themselves.
“And as you can see as you play more, the better he became because he got used to playing after being out of football for one year,” Johnson said. “Now the reins are off, we are going to let him go.”
What does that mean for Bosa this year?
On a defensive line loaded with talented pass rushers, he might be the best of the lot. And this year you might be seeing a bit more of him outside, which is where he would prefer to be.
“I’m playing outside,” he said this spring. “Outside is where I want to be, where I think I’ll play. I just like it a lot more. I get to run and work my moves a little more, get the guy moving.”
Bosa never looked out of place last season. He notched sacks against Wisconsin, Penn State, and Michigan, and half of his tackles for loss came in those three games and the Oklahoma contest, so it’s not like he was padding his stats against the worst on OSU’s schedule. He fit in completely with the Ohio State defense.
And now going through his first healthy winter, spring, and summer, he is going to be even better than what he showed a year ago.
“No question about it,” Johnson said. “You should see it just from spring practice take a jump because now he has the reps under his belt. He is only going to get better as he goes forward.”
