Ohio State’s TreVeyon Henderson Playing Well Despite Lack Of Home Run Plays

"He hasn’t had some of the big runs that he had last year, but he’s still doing some good things."

Author:
Andrew Lind
Oct 4, 2022 6:27 PM EDT

In this story:

Ohio State sophomore running back TreVeyon Henderson burst onto the college football scene with a 70-yard touchdown reception in last year’s win at Minnesota, which marked the first of his school freshman record 19 scores in 2021.

The end zone has been a bit harder to come by this year, though, as Henderson has rushed for 318 yards and three scores and has yet to catch a pass through the first five games – which is more like three games, since he missed most of the win over Toledo and all of the win over Rutgers with a foot injury.

Redshirt sophomore Miyan Williams has stepped up in Henderson’s absence, as he tied a school single-game record with five touchdowns in the victory over the Scarlet Knights, which begs the question of who will be the starter when Henderson returns to action this weekend against Michigan State?

“I look at it as we have two starters. I have the whole time,” running backs coach Tony Alford said during his press conference on Tuesday afternoon. “We have two guys that are capable of being starters here. We have two guys that are capable of playing championship-level football. We’re going to use them accordingly and how we need to use them to help win games.”

Henderson’s sophomore campaign has drawn comparisons to J.K. Dobbins’ performance in 2018, when he was sharing the backfield with redshirt junior Mike Weber and didn’t quite have the same production as he did in 2017, when he rushed for a school freshman record 1,403 yards.

Alford pushed back against that notion, however, noting that Henderson is still averaging more than six yards per carry this season and simply hasn’t had as many home run plays as he did last fall, when had five runs of 40 yards or more, including a season-best 68-yarder in the win over Penn State.

“He’s done some good things,” Alford said. “I think some people might be remiss because he hasn’t had some of the big runs that he had last year, but he’s still doing some good things. Is there room for improvement? Sure. There’s room for improvement in everybody’s game, but he’s not played poorly whatsoever.

“I think he might be a little frustrated because there haven’t been the long, dynamic 50-, 60-, 70-yard runs, but those will come … but he’s done some really good things for this offense and he will continue to. You’re still talking about a guy that’s ripping off six, six and a half, seven yards per carry. That’s pretty damn good.

“I’m not going to allow people to paint a picture that this kid’s not playing well. Circumstances are what they are and there’s some things we can do better and he can do better and I can do better … We’re not a finished product. We’re in Week 5 and we’re going to keep swinging, just trying to win as many games as we can however it looks.”

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