Ryan Watts has long had an extended view of his football future in mind.
It dates back to when he had just gotten to high school and was playing quarterback as a freshman in Texas. At the time, he thought he’d end up being short for the position – estimating he might reach 5-foot-10 – so he moved to cornerback in order to better his odds of playing at the next level. It, of course, worked for the second-year Ohio State corner. But it didn’t go exactly the way he anticipated. A late growth spurt sprouted him to 6-foot-2 while still in high school, yet the positional plan didn’t change.
“They just kept me at corner because I was able to move and run with receivers,” Watts said on Friday.
Nowadays, Watts says he’s around 6-foot-3 1/2. That, alone, has him standing out in a Buckeye corner room with nobody else above 6-foot-1. It’s also part of the package that’s helping Watts push for a spot in Kerry Coombs’ cornerback rotation as Ohio State figures out how to return the defensive backfield to BIA status.
He’s unique in his size – Coombs says he hasn’t ever coached someone at the position as tall as him – and his positional athleticism isn’t something holding him back either. Players get their miles-per-hour on the field timed in order to get a grasp of top-end speed, and he says his was top-three among the cornerbacks. He’s primarily focused on getting quicker since he already sees himself as being able to run stride for stride with receivers down the field.
“You can't just say, ‘He’s fast for his size.’ I don't like to hear that because I feel like I can move like the same 5-10 guy,” Watts said. “It helps a lot because I'm longer, I’m able to put my hands on receivers. They won’t even expect it with how far I can put my hands on them from a yard away. It shocks them, catches them by surprise. And then be able to move my feet, get on top of routes. I always try to make sure to turn and look for the ball.”
So far this year, Watts – in extended time on the field – has tried to showcase that combination of height and speed in front of Coombs and Matt Barnes.
He had come into last season as an early enrolled true freshman hoping to make an impact, yet the pandemic had other plans. In the spring of 2020, he practiced once before sitting out two practices because of a pulled hamstring. Then, Ohio State canceled spring camp entirely, sending him into an uneven offseason. In part because of the abnormal spring, summer and preseason camp, Watts only appeared on defense in two of eight games, totalling 28 snaps. It was, as one would imagine, “kind of frustrating.”
This year, he’s beginning to make up for lost time. He took advantage of a “whole bunch” of reps in the spring, especially given injuries that had held Sevyn Banks and Cameron Brown out of action, and he’s taking “even more” right now.
“I think live reps, just getting that live aspect, everything going fast, I missed a little bit of that,” Watts said. “This year, we're getting a lot more fast-tempo reps. The game's slowed down a lot for me.”
He’s spent plenty of time around Coombs and Barnes. But one unheralded addition to the staff who has helped Watts this year? Paul Rhodes, the first-year analyst with decades of defensive back experience.
“I spent a lot of my personal time with him, just going over exactly everything from press to in phase and finishing,” Watts said. “He has a good way to critique every part of the play. He'll explain it perfectly for me to be able to apply it to the field, and it worked a lot this year.”
All that work has Watts fighting to get onto the field.
Coombs’ message to him and the other corners has been consistent: “He just talks about the best player's going to play. Everybody has an opportunity to play, and he's just going to put all the best players on the field at once.” The coach is willing to rotate outside corners, playing more than two. And if that happens, Watts is a guy to watch. Banks and Brown are the probable starters at cornerback, but he’s arguably the No. 1 guy to watch who could force a rotation.
Watts picked off a pass in the spring game, and he’s trying to maintain momentum and stay front of mind for the coaches.
“We love long players here. We love tall players,” Coombs said. “But they've got to be able to change directions, they've got to be able to play in space. And Ryan really does. We worked really hard on it in the offseason on being in a good football position with a good knee bend, being able to play tall. He can't be short, and we don't want him to be. So he's going to play tall. We've worked really hard on what that looks like and what that feels like, and I'm really excited for his season.”
