Eleven Warriors

I didn't see anything  on the field out of that made me think wow this guy is going to be awesome.  When Hyde was out performing him everyone talked crap about Hyde but still loved Smith.  The Smith love is much like the Sabino love I guess.  Big talent coming in, not much to show for on the field.  Personally, I think he could be very good.  I don't worry as much about him since I think Hyde is going to be great and Dunn probably will be too.  Ball is probably going to be good too lol.  Then we have a RB or 2 coming in next year too.  

The biggest thing is I want him to stick around so we can land that brother of his in the 2013 class. 

I'd be very surprised if the fumbles thing continues. It's happened to a ton of young backs, very correctable issue. I think Rod Smith is going to get a lot of carries next year with Carlos Hyde. See both of them getting slightly more touches than Jordan Hall, who will be put more in a slot/hybrid role JMHO. 

My pro-Rod Smith thoughts have nothing to do with my hopes that I will once again be able to wear my #2 jersey with pride. 

I wanna see Hyde get more touches this yr he had a break out game verse Nebraska then got benched the rest of the season. Throw Hall in the Percy Harvin roll this year.The great thing about Urban is we know the best player will be on the field reguardless of senority. Hopefully Rod gets his stuff together and holds on to the ball

Yeah I think Smith will work into the rotation.  But I think Hall (unless a new role is found for him) and Hyde are your starters.  I think whatever shenanigans had Smith sitting at home around bowl time will make him third string coming into this season.  

I know the drops hurt us last year.  But I remember Beanie and Eddie both having trouble hanging onto the ball in their first years.

Maybe I'm alone in this, but I don't see Hyde as a starter. He certainly stepped in a played decently last year, but that's exactly what I think he is; a decent fill-in starter. On most Big Ten teams he'd be a great starter, but on OSU he feels like the back we have between great backs. He did really, really well but I think we've already seen his limits. I don't see him as a playmaker. I think Smith has the potential to be a true playmaker, but we'll never see it if he fumbles so often.

To me Hyde/Smith is the difference between a nice dependeable car with some speed and blistering race car with maintenance issues.

I think either Dunn or Ball have a legit chance to take the starter's role. Dunn looks to me like a breakway stud. I can see Dunn as a starter, Hall all over the place, Hyde on shorter yardage and goalline, Smith ready to step in as he works on his fumbling issues.

No actual facts to back any of that up- entirely based on feelings/impressions over my 30 years of OSU football watching.

Here you CPlunk, however the situation may work out like in the early 90's when Raymont Harris emerged from a jumble of unproven RB's, all with potential and different skill sets, to take over the position and become a stud.

I believe Hall, Hyde or Smith, given 17 to 18 attempts a game with improved offensive scheme, could become a 1,000 yard rusher. 

All these canidates are Buckeyes, so here's to hoping for the best.

EDIT:  here is a link to Raymont's OSU career, redshirt freshman,  3 vanilla years, then bingo! 1,300 yards 12 tds.

http://www.totalfootballstats.com/PlayerRB.asp?id=1663

any of these kids can do it, if opportunity meets hard work and dedication. 

Think Eddie George against the Illini as a frosh and later as a senior.

Same deal here, hopefully.

LCB

Fumbling problems are usually easy enough to fix.  Eddie George and Beanie Wells had fumbling issues in their freshman years, fixed those issues, and wound up being amongst the greatest RBs in school history.  I wouldn't just give up on the kid - there's too much upside. 

I'm willing to bet that the kid never starts here..and probably ends up transferring. Anyone willing to wager? In this case I wouldn't mind being wrong, hope he improves vastly.

@ Otrain

There's no way Hall and Hyde run 4.4 buddy, no way! Don't believe me wait till the Combine
. Hall is 4.5 at best, Hyde seems like a 4.5 guy who ran an alleged 4.3..have to see it to believe that one. Not to many 230 pound backs can do that in the past or present.

If Smith ever starts or not, really isn't important enough to me to wager on.  I can't imagine you have seen enough, in his limited game play, to know either.  Smith has 3 years left.  He is a 20 year old young man.  In stead of lathering his future with your bottle of Elmer's white glue and pasting his future in the fail column, how bout waiting a bit and see how he responds to the new coaching staff and a new opportunity in a new offense.

As was posted above, proclaiming high school players will have better careers than Smith, at this point, is ridiculous.

Anyone who ever saw Cie Grant play defensive back as a freshman and sophomore, getting consistently burnt and turned around, nohow could have guessed he would have applied the game winning pressure in Glendale in January of 2003, as a linebacker.  Heck my dad and I used to refer to Cie Grant as "toast", for how often he got burnt.  Grant grew, got stronger, and provided OSU with a monumental 1/11th of a dominating 2002 defense.

How good are Rod's hands?  Someone of his size and athleticism could move to TE/Hback

If they would have just redshirted him last year we wouldnt be sitting here wondering if he's going to transfer and how that affects his brother Jaylon's recruitment. 

They need to give him the same treatment Rashard Mendenhall got his first year in Pittsburgh. He fumbled a couple of times in his first few starts and the team made him carry a football with him everywhere he went and if he dropped it when they tried to knock it out, etc. he had to pay $1000. 

Now I know Smith is just a 20 year old kid with no paycheck but they could do something similar. He'd stop fumbling real quick if he had to run all day after each fumble. Just sayin'

I understand/am with you  Buckeye Jason, some OSU hyped recruit fails have been easy to spot.  Never saw Mo Wells ever run through a shoestring tackle, or burst past a Kent State linebacker.  Never saw Willey Mobley even don a uniform.

  Smith has had such a limited amount of play, his future is too tough to tell.  Player breakouts don't always happen at the sametime or from the minute players gets their first snap.

Hall is purely a quick burst player with tremendous agility. He runs with short strides and is not a top end speed athlete. He could probably beat most people in a 10-15 yard sprint but would be beat in longer 40-100 yard runs.

I trust Urban will be able to identify who should be playing.  As far as Hall goes, he looked incredibly slow this year, especially in the Gator Bowl.  I am guessing Hall thought he would have to carry the load at RB when Boom was suspended and bulked up to hold up to the pounding.  Hopefully the new coaching\strength staff will have him drop 15 lbs and he will gain some speed back.  He's never going to be a 20+ carry guy for us.

Rod Smith has way too much talent to count him out. Besides we have a bigtime playmaker in Miller and his abilities should open things up for alot of the other wepons we will have on offense.

I think that's a lock of a guarantee on Rod, StatutoryGlory-- I wouldn't be surprised if he is THE leading RB rusher. I have a hunch that Marotti and Urban know how to cure a case of the fumbles (understatement of the year?). Hyde and Smith are going to be a dominant 1-2 punch.

@Btalbert, Smith showed really good burst and acceleration when he played against Akron and Toledo. However I agree with you that Hyde will be the starter and will be the best running back on the team. I do think that Ball and Smith will get the second most amount of carries. I'm not high on Bri'onte Dunn or Jordan Hall. They both run in the 4.6s, which for a running back is just plain slow. 

@William - The mistake too many fans make is putting too much stock in 40 times. Quickness, agility, game speed(yes there is a difference), and toughness are what matters in football. How often do you see RB's, or anyone for that matter, run 40 yards in a straight line in a game? In a RB I am more concerned with their burst off the line which you CANNOT measure from a 40 time. The 40 is a good indicator of overall speed, but you simply cannot judge someone by that alone.

Saine 100% should've been a WR.  His short area quickness was crap to be a RB but his size, physique, hands, and speed would have been ideal for WR.

Actually short area quickness is even more important for a WR...you need that in order to break off routes and create separation from DB's. Saine's build at 5'11'' 220lbs is not even close to being an ideal frame for a WR. Saine played the position he was meant for, he just didn't have all the tools needed. In any case, he appears to be doing just fine seeing as Green Bay thinks he's good enough to work into their rotation.

Don't get me wrong I think Carlos Hyde is a great back and will do really well for us this year, but he really struggled to break long runs. He is the type of guy that gets 5 yards a carry. A lot of times last year he had one man to beat and all he would do is run the guy over and go down. I think Rod is a little more dynamic with more potential to make that last guy miss with either the stiff arm or shifty move.

I don't think Hall is that quick either, he was very slow in the Florida game. And anyway I think in Meyer system Hall will get touches at WR and RB. I think he gets 10-15 touches a game between catches and runs. There are a lot of positions to shake out before next season, Everyone seemed to LOVE Smith all last spring and into camp but he never got in, I woudln't be surprised if he gets some carries this year.

@BucksShockTheWorld

I'm thinking you might have missed the Nebraska game. It was Hydes really only start and he had a 63yd TD run which I think was the 2nd longest of the year behind braxtons. He tore up Nebraska. We need to give this kid more touches so he can be the playmaker he's meant to be. He has 4.4 speed and power like you said to run over people

^ You are 100% wrong. If all you can run are fly routes defenses will scheme against that rendering that WR useless. How many WR's do you see at 5'11''(if that) and 220 lbs?? With that frame it makes it difficult to contort your body to make the kinds of catches required of WR's. Saine is a RB...plain and simple. He just lacked the ability to make cuts w/o losing speed.
 

^ we all know how that went against osu

BuckeyeJason: thank you for just ensuring that Rod Smith will have a breakout 2012. Any time someone says/writes "mark it down," he's begging for a prediction to go the other way.

Now, if you would please make some extremely rosy predictions for the TTUN and make sure in each case to write "mark it down, baby!" . . .

2 inches is alot when talking about how much weight you are carrying. And way to bring up one of the few that are close to Saine's height/weight. And when did Qb's become a part of your argument? But while on that subject, you once again listed the exception rather than the rule..

@ OTRAIN

I def caught the Nebraska game. I agree with you that Hyde is going to be a great productive back for us, and he has knocked off some big runs. He just frustrated me a lot last year by NOT making that last guy miss a lot of times which would put him up there as a great back instead of just a good one if he could. I like Rod a lot but Carlos was def the man last year. Hall took WAY too many carries away from him.