Ryan Day met with the assembled media yesterday afternoon to recap the Grambling State game and look ahead to this Saturday's primetime clash with the Ohio Bobcats.
As a head coach, even when he wins 70-0, Day is going to find things to be upset about or challenge his team to improve on. And rightfully so. As he's said many times, he looks at games like Grambling State as if Ohio State is playing against itself and its own expectations versus worrying about anything the opponent might do.
That said, Day's commentary on Ohio State's punt return effort versus the Tigers wasn't contrived. The unit was indeed mid or even below-mid last Saturday.
"That's an area coming out of the game that we've got to improve on, for sure. I think we lost 47 hidden yards with the ball bouncing around on the ground. A couple of them were very difficult because they weren't very well hit, but other ones I feel like we could have fielded. It's not just one thing. Brandon (Inniss) is still gonna return punts for us, but we also have Jeremiah (Smith) that we can put back there, Carnell (Tate), Caleb (Downs), if we need to. We're gonna stick to it, but we got to get better. There's no question. That's something coming out of the game that was a red flag that we got to get fixed."– Ryan Day
My fellow staffer, Andy Anders, wrote about the punt return unit yesterday right after Day's presser. Within it, he astutely asserted that while 47 lost "hidden yards" don't mean squat against a Grambling State, they damn sure could against a Penn State or a Michigan or a fill-in-the-blank team with talent somewhere in the same stratosphere as Ohio State's.
He also noted Ohio State punt returners only attempted to return one out of 11 punts on the day. Sure, the punter and the punt coverage team have something to do with that, but so does the punt returner and the punt return team.
And the reality is, if you look at the last 10 years (including this year's very small sample size), Ohio State never ranked inside the nation's top-50 in average yards per punt return. That feels wild to me. Almost unbelievable when you think about the talent on the rosters over those 10 years.
It's also interesting, to me at least, that over the last six seasons, Ohio State has ranked outside the top 40 in actual punt return attempts in three of the last four seasons. Sure, there are variables out of OSU's control but it's at least an interesting footnote.
| SEASON | YARDS/RETURN | NATIONAL RANK | NUMBER OF RETURNS | NATIONAL RANK |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 (2G) | 8.0 | 62 | 1 | 115 |
| 2024 | 8.5 | 59 | 24 | 21 |
| 2023 | 4.4 | 114 | 17 | 44 |
| 2022 | 8.3 | 59 | 17 | 58 |
| 2021 | 5.7 | 100 | 23 | 25 |
| 2020 | 6.2 | 73 | 10 | 56 |
| 2019 | 7.3 | 72 | 29 | 7 |
| 2018 | 8.2 | 73 | 27 | 16 |
| 2017 | 5.5 | 98 | 30 | 7 |
| 2016 | 5.2 | 105 | 26 | 15 |
Back to the 2025 squad, as captured in the quote above, it appears Brandon Inniss will remain the starting punt returner for now. Last season, Inniss returned 14 punts for an average of 7.6 yards.
I know we all remember Caleb Downs' 79-yard punt return for a touchdown against Indiana last season so maybe fans would prefer to see him back deep. If so, keep in mind he returned five other punts last year for an average of 3.8 yards. Jeremiah Smith, if he's on your mind, has yet to return a punt in his Buckeye career. And of course losing either those two to injury on a punt return would be a tough pill to swallow.
So if you don't want your two franchise players on punt return then maybe it's Carnell Tate or even Bryson Rodgers especially after the latter looked pretty fluid against Grambling State.
No matter who Day tries out and ultimately sticks with, the fact is a lack of a top-tier punt return game is nothing new in Columbus. It hasn't been a fatal flaw but it's certainly one for which fans would welcome an exciting solution.
