Football
Haw Odd Man Out in OSU Backfield For Now
By John Porentas
All through spring practice and fall camp the big story at tailback was the tight competition for playing time between Antonio Pittman and Eric Haw. Two games into the season, it has been no contest. Pittman is getting the carries, and Haw is getting plenty of rest on game day. Pittman has clearly separated himself in a big way from Haw.
OSU running back coach Dick Tressel
"He's definitely a year ahead of where he was at this time last year," said Ohio State running backs coach Dick Tressel.
"Typically you expect their greatest jump between their first year and second year.
"I think(in Pittman's case) it's physical confidence, I think he has a physical confidence that he didn't have at this time a year ago.
"He's not especially faster or quicker or anything like that, but that confidence and a little bit bigger and stronger, a year older, a year more mature, so that puts him in a position to utilize his talents much more effectively now."
That's part of the story. The other part is that Pittman simply got a head start on Haw last year when Pittman got on the field as a true freshman while Haw was redshirted. That left Haw without any game experience coming into this season, a factor that has helped keep Haw very much behind Pittman on the depth chart.
Antonio Pittman
"The thing with Eric is that we had a bunch of senior, older backs last year, and we were able to mix Antonio Pitman in with those guys, so that moved him a little further ahead on the whole developmental process," said Tressel.
"That added to the challenge for Eric to become, his goal I'm sure, the starting tailback at Ohio State."
Adding to Haw's uphill battle was the decision to juggle some personnel in the OSU backfield.
"The next thing was the move of Schnittker from being a part-time tailback and part-time fullback to a full-time tailback. Now the reps are getting sliced up and you can only have so-many guys really know everything that's going on with all the pass protections and carrying the ball and all those kinds of things," said Tressel.
Eric Haw
That put Haw at least three rungs down on the OSU tailback depth chart. Compounding Haw's problems is the arrival of Maurice Wells on campus.
"Maurice is a little different from any of those other guys," said Tressel.
"He's a quick-start, quick-change of directions guy. If we have some situations where that's the change of pace that you need, he's different than the other guys. Wells is the most different. Eric is a little bit more like the other two," said Tressel.
That makes Haw currently the last man whose name will be called for duty in the OSU backfield this fall. Tressel says he's talked to Haw about the situation.
"I sat down and talked to him about a week ago and said 'OK, here we go, you've only got 50 games left in your career, here we go,' said Tressel.
Tressel is hoping Haw will take it upon himself to improve enough to get back into the mix.
"He's still got four whole seasons and I hope he approaches it that way. This past week he spent some time carrying the ball on scout team and some with us, and maybe it was his best week of practice thus far. That's what he has to do if he wants to steal some of those reps and some of those carries,'" Tressel said.
