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Ohio State’s Cornerback Unit Built to Be Best in America in 2024, Elite for Years to Come
Ohio State should have college football’s best cornerback unit in 2024 and is set up to have elite cornerback play for years to come with the talent it’s recruited at the position.
OHIO STATE’S CORNERBACK UNIT BUILT TO BE BEST IN AMERICA IN 2024, ELITE FOR YEARS TO COME
Going into the 2023 season, Tim Walton had reason to ponder whether Ohio State’s secondary really deserved to call itself the Best In America.
Ohio State’s defensive backs have proudly used “BIA” as a moniker for the past decade, but the Buckeyes’ secondary play was far from that standard from 2020-22.
Ohio State finished 122nd in the FBS in passing yards allowed per game in 2020, 96th in 2021 and 26th in 2022. So, while the Buckeyes’ secondary improved in Walton’s first year on the job in 2022, he knew the BIA standard was something Ohio State had to earn back this past season.
“The Best in America, that’s a big statement. I think we had that going for a while. I think we gotta get that back,” Walton said in a “Tradition Talk” video posted by Ohio State last June. “Get that standard back to where it used to be, man, where we have first-round draft picks, first-team All-Americans, first-team All-Big Tens, guys up for the Thorpe Award, things like that. That’s to me the standard of BIA, the absolute Best in America.”
Half a year later, it no longer feels like a stretch for Ohio State’s defensive backs – particularly its cornerbacks, the position Walton primarily coaches – to call themselves BIA once again.
Statistically, Ohio State’s pass defense was the Best in America in 2023, leading the nation in passing yards allowed per game (145.9) and passing yards allowed per attempt (5.0). Those efforts were led by elite secondary play, particularly from the starting cornerback trio of Denzel Burke, Davison Igbinosun and Jordan Hancock, who consistently covered up opposing receivers and made it difficult for opponents to pass the ball all year long.
Ohio State has every reason to believe it should have the best cornerback unit in America once again in 2024, as it now knows that it will have all three of those starting cornerbacks back. While Burke could have been an early-round pick in the 2024 NFL draft and Hancock played well enough in his first year as a starter to get himself drafted, both of them announced Wednesday that they would stay at Ohio State for their senior seasons. Igbinosun, who joined the Buckeyes via the transfer portal in 2023, is not yet draft-eligible and is entering his junior season.
After three years of substandard play at the position, Ohio State’s cornerbacks were arguably the team’s best unit in 2023, finishing the year with three of the team’s 12 best players. Burke bounced back from an injury-plagued 2022 season to become one of the nation’s top cover men in his third year as a starter. Igbinosun was a clear upgrade opposite Burke, providing physical coverage and excellent run support all season as Ohio State’s No. 2 cornerback. Hancock didn’t become a starter until midyear, when the Buckeyes moved to a three-cornerback lineup instead of starting Sonny Styles as a nickel safety, but he emerged as an excellent slot cornerback and one of Ohio State’s top defensive playmakers down the stretch of the season.
With Burke now set to be a rare fourth-year starter at Ohio State, Igbinosun having a full year of experience as a Buckeye under his belt, and Hancock now entrenched as a full-time starter, Ohio State’s cornerbacks should be even better in 2024, setting the foundation for the Buckeyes to have an elite defense.
“We’ll be the No. 1 defense coming into next year,” Burke said before the Cotton Bowl when asked about the defense’s potential if he returned to Columbus. “There’s a lot of guys that have played a lot of ball. Honestly, it would look scary.”
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