ScriptOhio
Everybody is somebody else's weirdo.
“I know he's frustrated. But we're not as far away as we think. And if he just has the mindset of showing up every day and getting as much treatment as he can, take care of his body, this will be behind us soon, and we still got a lot of football to play,” Day said Tuesday.
“He's struggling, he wants to play. He's one of the more competitive players I've been around before. But rarely does it go the way you expect it to go. That's just life in general. So life's gonna throw adversity our way. And we control the response.”
When Smith-Njigba will return to game action remains uncertain. While Smith-Njigba has not been available to the media since he was initially injured against Notre Dame, Kirk Herbstreit indicated during ABC’s broadcast of Saturday night’s Ohio State-Wisconsin game that Smith-Njigba told him he thought it was likely he would also miss this week’s game against Rutgers.
“I talked with him before the game, asked him if he’s OK and how soon he might come back. He thinks he may rest it potentially another week. He just wants to be careful with it,” Herbstreit said. “He felt he came back a little bit too soon last week, maybe played a few too many plays and he felt it. That’s why he’s pulling himself back.”
Day said Tuesday, however, that Smith-Njigba wants to be back on the field as soon as possible.
“I don't think we want to move forward until we all feel really good about everything. But again, Jaxon still has a mindset of day-to-day,” Day said. “We're not going to put any kind of timetable on it. And just he and the training staff are going to work hard.”
Day said the decisions for Smith-Njigba to play against Toledo and not to play against Wisconsin were made by Smith-Njigba and Ohio State’s medical staff, and Day said he will continue to defer to them to determine the best course of action for when Smith-Njigba should return.
“We always refer to the trainers and to the doctors and then get the feedback from the player,” Day said. “And we try to do the best we can to keep them as safe as we can in those moments, and we'll continue to do that.”
In hindsight, there’s certainly reason to question whether Ohio State took an unnecessary risk by playing Smith-Njigba against Toledo, especially if he ends up missing multiple conference games. Presumably, Smith-Njigba and the medical staff will want to be extra cautious before he returns to action again to try to ensure he doesn’t suffer another setback in his recovery.
That said, Day replied “no” when asked if he regretted playing Smith-Njigba against the Rockets.
“You got to just trust in what you see in your evaluations and then go from there,” Day said.
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