Ohio State Hopes Sermon Solves Running Back Shortage
If Trey Sermon plants his own flag in Ohio Stadium, it will be much more popular with Ohio State fans than the last such endeavor in which he played a role.
Sermon, a graduate transfer from Oklahoma, announced Sunday he will play his final season of college football for Ohio State, where as a Sooners' freshman in 2017 he scored a touchdown and led his team in rushing in the famous Baker Mayfield flag-plant game.
Now it'll be the Buckeyes that Sermon tries to make a mark with given a playing time opportunity widened by J.K. Dobbins' departure for the NFL and Master Teague's unspecified injury on the first day of spring practice.
Teague's return for fall is anything but a certainty -- as is the season, at this point. Even if Teague is healthy, OSU's depth chart behind him is unsettled because of inexperience and injury.
That's what convinced Sermon to choose the Buckeyes one week after he entered the Transfer Portal from Oklahoma, where he fell out of favor last season with the emergence of Kennedy Brooks.
Sermon, like many grad transfers, is making his second home where he nearly made his first coming out of high school.
Both he and Dobbins were high on running backs coach Tony Alford's list as elite recruits.
Similarly, on Saturday night, Ohio State's basketball team grabbed the nation's No. 1 transfer in Harvard graduate Seth Towns, who selected the Crimson over OSU and Butler coming out of Columbus' Northland High School.
Sermon will compete with Teague, if he's healthy, and Marcus Crowley, who suffered a season-ending injury in early November.
Steele Chambers, who rushed 19 times for 135 yards last season, and incoming freshman Miyan Williams of Cincinnati Winton Woods are OSU's other running back candidates.
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