Year of Waiting Behind Him, Linebacker Tuf Borland Readies for 2017
Tuf Borland enrolled early a season ago in order to get a jump start on his Buckeye career. He was one of three linebackers signed by Ohio State in the 2016 class, and despite his early arrival he was the only one of the three to redshirt.
He spent the season as all redshirts do -- learning the ropes and getting better, and there were
a lot of ropes.
"When I came in early in the winter we had our St. Valentine’s day massacre," he recently recalled. "You go in there and the music is up real loud, everyone is screaming, atmosphere was like nothing I had ever seen before. It kind of took me by surprise. I just said to myself, 'Okay, it’s time to go. You’ve got to step in there and take it for what it is and push through it.'"
Borland did everything he was asked to do as a freshman and that continued during bowl practices where the young players got more opportunities than they did throughout the season. His experiences as a true freshman prepared him well for the winter workouts and the work that he is doing now.
"The demands here are out of this world," he said. "But at the end of the day not only does it better you physically, but it betters you as a person, to be able to discipline yourself to do the things you need to do later on in life."
Several times during the 2016 season, Borland's fellow linebackers talked about how well he was playing in practice and the growth he was making despite not getting into any games. When asked about the difficulty in not playing, he credited those same teammates with helping him through it.
"It’s difficult, but at the end of the day when you’re surrounded by such a great group of guys it makes it fun, just being around the guys every day," he said. "Learning from Kwon, Worley, those kind of guys makes it easy to better yourself."
Entire article:
http://theozone.net/Ohio-State/Foot...d-Him-Linebacker-Tuf-Borland-Readies-for-2017
