Tuf Borland Was the Starter Before, Will He Be When He Returns?

The Ohio State football team was 9-0 last season when Tuf Borland started, and 3-2 when he didn’t.

That could just be coincidence, of course.

Borland didn’t start at middle linebacker last year until the fourth game of the season. He was then replaced in the starting lineup for games against Penn State and Iowa when Chris Worley was fully recovered from a foot injury.

Again, those two results could have just been a coincidence as well.

In the four games against Power 5 opponents (two of them ranked) without Borland in the starting lineup, the Ohio State defense gave up 32.8 points per game. In the eight games against Power 5 opponents (three of them ranked) with Borland in the lineup, the Buckeyes allowed just 9.0 points per game.

Against ranked opponents with Borland starting, the OSU defense gave up 8.0 points per game. With Borland out of the starting lineup, ranked offenses averaged 31 points per game against the Buckeyes.

Perhaps most amazingly, only once in the nine games that Borland started did the Buckeyes allow a touchdown drive with him in the game that didn’t follow a turnover from the Ohio State offense or mistake from the special teams. That lone touchdown drive came against Michigan and went 77 yards.

Coincidence or not, the presence of Tuf Borland solidified an Ohio State defense that liquefied a little too often last season.

Now with Borland out until around September with an Achilles tendon injury, the middle linebacker position has once again been thrown into a gulch of uncertainty. The one certainty, however, is that Borland will return, and should be as good as new when he does.

“I think it is a challenge, but I know what we’re doing now with Achilles,” said linebackers coach Bill Davis. “I’ve had many players get Achilles and they come back and play and that Achilles is never a problem again. That’s the neat part about it. Once it’s fixed, it’s fixed, and I’ve never seen it happen to the same spot. But we really are ahead of the game with Tuf and how he heals, and he’s healed everything faster than most, so hopefully we’ll have him at the beginning.”

Even if the Buckeyes do have him at the beginning of the season, they won’t have him for camp. Davis is going to have to get somebody else ready to play middle linebacker for the Ohio State defense. In Borland’s place, fourth-year junior Justin Hilliard and sophomore Baron Browning have played well this spring, but neither has the history of being the calming influence like Borland.

Expectations for both are still very high, and if they play well, it does create a question of whether or not Tuf Borland will return to the starting spot once he returns. According to Davis, that’s up to Borland and his Achilles tendon.

“He was [the starter] before he got hurt because Tuf runs the show,” he said. “Everybody in there looks at Tuf and they know Tuf knows and Tuf gets you set and Tuf does his job every down. He earned that last year. Tuf left as the starter and when he gets healthy — again, it’s an Achilles, so the timetable is on his own body.

When it comes back, we don’t know where that is. Is it game three, game one, training camp? We don’t know that and that’s going to dictate a lot of where he’ll be back.”