Huge game on Sat!
Quick Recovery from Injury, Film Study Allowed Lathan Ransom to Make One of Ohio State’s Biggest Plays Against Penn State
By
Dan Hope on November 7, 2024 at 8:35 am
@dan_hope
Email this Article
Share on RedditShare on TwitterShare on Facebook
19 Comments
Lathan Ransom has been no stranger to injuries during his Ohio State career.
Ransom broke his leg in the Rose Bowl at the end of the 2021 season, forcing him into a lengthy recovery process that sidelined him for most of the 2022 offseason. After coming back strong from that injury, Ransom missed the Buckeyes’ final five games of 2023 with a Lisfranc injury in his foot. Ransom has spent so much time with Ohio State’s athletic training staff, particularly physical therapist Adam Stewart, that they’ve become like family to him over the last three years.
“I always joke around (with Stewart) and be like, ‘Man, he's gonna be in my wedding’ 'cause of how much he's done for me here,” Ransom said.
So Ransom felt “a lot of frustration” when the injury bug bit him yet again in Ohio State’s loss to Oregon on Oct. 12. But with the help of Stewart and the rest of Ohio State’s athletic training staff, Ransom was able to get back on the field just three weeks later for the Buckeyes’ second marquee game of the season against Penn State.
“Y'all just see me come back, but y'all don't know the stuff that went behind the scenes to get back and to get right,” Ransom said. “But I'm feeling great now.”
The fact that Ransom suffered an injury in the Oregon game was unknown at the time as Ransom played all 68 of Ohio State’s defensive snaps against the Ducks. Ransom didn’t say Wednesday exactly when or how the injury happened or what the injury was, but said he wasn’t going to let it stop him from continuing to play in the Buckeyes’ four-quarter battle with the Ducks.
“I was just trying to focus on the game. ‘Cause I'm in the game, no one cares (that he was hurt). The game doesn't care. The fans don't care. That's something I've known and I've learned being here. So I was just trying to play the game the best for my team,” Ransom said.
The injury was significant enough that Ransom had to sit out the Buckeyes’ next game against Nebraska following their post-Oregon bye week. But it didn’t limit him in last week’s game at Penn State, where he played a crucial role in one of the most important plays of Ohio State’s
20-13 win over the Nittany Lions.
With Penn State facing 4th-and-goal at the 1-yard line on its final possession and needing a touchdown to tie the game, Ransom had a hunch which play Penn State was going to run. He figured the Nittany Lions were going to pass the ball after they were stopped on three straight runs, and he knew they were going to want to get the ball to their top playmaker, tight end Tyler Warren.
Thanks to the Buckeyes’ film study in the week leading up to the game, Ransom knew that one of Penn State’s favorite goal-line plays was to attempt to set a pick to free up Warren for a touchdown. So when the Nittany Lions decided to do exactly that, Ransom immediately broke toward Warren and got into perfect position in coverage to take Warren out of the play, forcing Drew Allar to go to his second read.
Ohio State’s other starting safety, Caleb Downs, did his own job just as well by blanketing Penn State’s No. 2 tight end Khalil Dinkins in coverage, and Allar’s pass fell incomplete, allowing Ohio State’s offense to run out the clock from there and secure a road win over the then-third-ranked team in the country.
After working his way back in three weeks from an injury suffered against Oregon, Lathan Ransom’s preparation allowed him to shut down Penn State’s designed play on 4th-and-goal.
www.elevenwarriors.com
