Ohio State football: Martin makes some fullback noise
by Doug Lesmerises
Sunday August 17, 2008
More notes from Saturday's jersey scrimmage:
* FULLBACK QUESTIONS: Most of the time, it won't matter. Of the 165 snaps in Saturday's jersey scrimmage, Ohio State coach Jim Tressel estimated that a fullback was on the field only 20 percent of the time.
So the battle for the fullback job won't define the season - unless a fullback misses a block on fourth down and Beanie Wells gets stuffed in the backfield on a make-or-break run.
At the moment, one Glenville guy seems to be out, a Euclid guy seems to be in and another Glenville guy is in the mix.
Senior Curtis Terry (Glenville), who sounded like the leader for playing time there when camp started two weeks ago, didn't play fullback at all Saturday, spending his time at linebacker and defensive end.
"It's never over till it's over," Tressel said of the Terry fullback experiment. "He focused more on defense this week. The nice thing about Curtis is he's got the ability to help in a lot of different ways."
Instead, senior Brandon Smith (Euclid), Ryan Lukens, Spencer Smith and freshman Jermil Martin (Glenville) were among the players who saw fullback action.
With Wells and Brandon Saine sitting out at the tailback spot, Martin even saw some tailback time.
"He's kind of our double role guy," Tressel said. "He can run it, especially late in the game or late in the scrimmage when you're a little bit loaded up fatigue wise and that big guy hits you."