Ohio State Football: Best Player of 2018

 

With the 2017 season behind us and the 2018 season still months away, I have decided that today is a day for wild speculation.  As I foresee that there may, in fact, be many of these days over the coming months, I will be asking and answering questions that are impossible to answer (unless your name is Urban) and will be fiercely defending my completely baseless findings.  In pursuit of this goal, today’s question is a biggie: “Who will be the best player on the field for the Buckeyes next season?”

 

To answer this question, we must first establish what I mean by “best.”  Am I asking what player will be the most talented on the field at any given time?  Or is it more about who excels the most at their position relative to the rest of the country?  Perhaps the question would best be answered by choosing the player that most positively affects the gameplay of the team, like an MVP award?

 

I don’t know.  If I had known that I wouldn’t be able to get past the specifying stage of my question, perhaps I wouldn’t have even started writing this article (more wild speculation), but now I’ve begun, so I must finish.  And since I am incapable of making decisions, I’m just going to answer all three questions.

 

 

 

Who is the Most Talented Player on the 2018 Ohio State Roster?

 

There are a lot of players to choose from when asking this question.  Nick Bosa, Chase Young, Jeffrey Okudah and Baron Browning are all in the Top 10 of recruits in Ohio State History.  The Buckeyes will have 9 247sports consensus 5-star prospects on their roster next year and will boast perhaps their greatest recruiting class of all time.  Choosing the most talented player on this roster is like choosing the best of all of the bars of gold, or the tastiest of all of the Chipotle Mexican Grills, but I have to choose one and so I will choose the one that has proven it.

 

Winner:  Nick Bosa

 

Austin Mack has made some crazy catches. Isaiah Prince has stepped up on the offensive line.  Dwayne Haskins, Tate Martell, and JK Dobbins all have a shot at winning the Heisman next year, but I chose the fourth highest rated prospect in OSU history.  Nick Bosa is the highest rated prospect on the team this year and the one that has most proven what a Top 10 prospect can do.  He spent last year fighting through double- and triple-teams, freeing up the other monsters on the defensive line, and making huge plays in the backfield.  With Chase Young showing flashes of brilliance in his limited time on-field in 2018, the Little Bear might just have even more opportunities to shine this coming season.

 

Who is going to win an individual award next year?

 

This category is not quite as easy to deliberate on. Many of OSU’s best players come at positions that are stacked on the national stage.  JK Dobbins could win the Heisman, but he also might not be the best running back in the Big Ten with his counterpart at Wisconsin, Jonathan Taylor, putting up huge numbers on the ground.  All of this is without even mentioning the reigning Doak Walker award-winner, Bryce Love.

 

Nick Bosa, Chase Young, and Dre’Mont Jones are all enormously talented on the defensive line.  However, with players like Ed Oliver of Houston or Austin Bryant, Clelin Ferrell and Christian Wilkins, Clemson’s talented trio of All-Americans also back on the field, the odds of getting an individual award on the defensive line are not so great.

 

Winner:  Austin Mack

 

His path to the Biletnikoff Award does seem a little bit… well, impossible, but watching the catches he made in 2017 and listening to the way his coaches talk about him, it really is impossible… to dislike him.  Austin Mack will have to fight off upperclassmen trying to stay on the field, stand out in Urban Meyer’s run-first offense and catch passes from a brand new starting quarterback, but he has the talent and the upward mobility to be a first-round pick.  Hopefully, though, he will have a more pass-heavy offense to work with, as Dwayne Haskins looks to be the front-runner for the starting job and Ryan Day has been elevated to offensive coordinator.

 

Fingers crossed.

 

Who will be the 2018 Ohio State MVP?

 

I only have one answer to this question, and it’s at the same position as it would be on any other team: QB.  JK Dobbins will probably have a great year next year.  The offensive line should be good. The defensive line will be unstoppable and Alex Grinch and Greg Schiano are going to figure out the rest of the defense.  With all of that being said, the Most Valuable Player on this team next year is going to have to be the master and commander.

 

Winner:  Dwayne Haskins

 

I understand that we don’t know who the starting quarterback is going to be next year, but I do know that Dwayne Haskins looked the closest to being ready.  I also know that, in Urban’s Power Spread offensive philosophy, the offense runs through the quarterback.  The Buckeyes success (or failure) next year is going to hinge on the quarterback’s ability to do what the coaches need him to do and how well he can develop as the season progresses.  If Dwayne trots out there against Oregon State on September 1st, he has to be the MVP.

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