Over the last couple of days, parents of Ohio State players have been tweeting out the good news that their son has been named a starter.
Austin Mack’s mother tweeted on Friday that her son will be starting against Indiana. Sunday, Ohio State football’s Twitter account released this video of Johnnie Dixon’s mother being given the news that her son would be starting as well.
Nothing better than watching @YoungKing_JD5's mom's reaction to hearing her son will make his first start as a Buckeye on Thursday. ? pic.twitter.com/DbbcxS9yhA
— Ohio State Football (@OhioStateFB) August 27, 2017
K.J. Hill’s parents also tweeted out that their son would be starting against Indiana as well, but there was no video because Hill said he needed a haircut.
So that’s Ohio State’s starting receiving corps, right? Captains Parris Campbell and Terry McLaurin have been beaten out and displaced? Sophomore Binjimen Victor has more potential than any Urban Meyer receiver ever, but now he’s nowhere to be seen?
No.
No to all of that.
Mack, Hill, and Dixon may or may not be the first three receivers to take the field against Indiana, but they won’t be the last three.
“You have to have six,” said receivers coach Zach Smith. “Every year I’ve got to have six. I tell them there’s no starters.”
The Buckeyes have those six, and you can find them all sitting in the front row of the receivers room. They lead the group and all six of them will rotate in, just like the defensive ends and cornerbacks did a year ago and will do again.
“Two at every position and then we can just roll them,” Smith said back in the spring. “Unless there’s a deficiency somewhere, then we’re going to play six. That’s what we always want to do.”
According to the Buckeye coaches, the receivers were one of the real bright spots of the team during fall camp, and Ohio State found their six receivers.
And they’re all starters.
“They do the (pregame) video board and I tell them all the time there should be six guys up there because there’s not like a starting X because if there is, we’re going to be really bad,” Smith said. “There’s got to be two. There’s got to be two Hs and two Zs. So there’s got to be six wideouts.”
The good news is that not only does Smith have his six, this is a versatile group with plenty of moving parts.
“A lot of them are interchangeable,” Smith said. “A guy like Parris you can move in and out. K.J. in and out. But I’ve got to have six. And then the next one is the seventh guy that’s got to be ready because at any time an injury can make the seventh guy the sixth guy.”