The most interesting thing I heard Tuesday at Ohio State was Ryan Day talking about how they view positions when deciding what personnel to use.
He has already talked about this a time or two this year, but this time the question was specifically about fullbacks, so that obviously caught my ear.
Then the head coach of the Buckeyes revealed more than that in his answer.
“Well, I think you're seeing us play with a fullback, quote unquote, in the backfield. But we feel like the skill set can be handled by our tight end body types. Now, if there's somebody that fits that role and can do certain things, like carry the ball, can insert on run game, kick out on gap schemes, catch the ball out of the backfield, also run the ball, it would be a consideration for sure. But I think the thing about it is you have to bring versatility. So if you're a receiver and you can only run routes and you can't block, you don't have a lot of versatility. You don't bring as much value, unless you're just really, really elite at that one thing.”
Fullback is a fascinating position because it evolved so much over time.
In Woody Hayes’ T formation offense, the fullback was originally the star. He was the best player and the primary ball carrier.
Bob White, Jim Otis, John Brockington and Troy High School legend Bob Ferguson all earned All-America status playing the position in the 1950s and ‘60s.
Hayes adopted the I formation in 1968, and the tailback became more of the focal point, though there were still lots of versatile fullbacks who could run, block and catch all the way up through the ‘90s and into the early 2000s.
(Pete Johnson, Jeff Logan, Tim Spencer, Vaughn Broadnax, Scottie Graham, Jeff Cothran, Matt Keller, Nicky Sualua, Jamar Martin…)
However, the fullback evolved into a glorified offensive lineman in many offenses, including Jim Tressel’s, so the guy who eventually got replaced by a slot receiver was not versatile, as Ryan Day wants him to be, but that is by no means the only way to use that position historically.
Yet here is something working in the favor of its potential return: If you want to have a running back be a lead blocker, he no longer has to be big enough to take on a 250-pound middle linebacker who is built to take on lineman. More often it will be a guy who is like 230 and built to run and hit, so that opens up the possibility of having more versatile players at the position again.
“If you're a tight end and you can only block and you can't run routes, or you can run routes but you can't protect, you don't bring as much value. Because eventually, what teams are going to do is they're going to say, when he's in the game, he's doing this. Same thing with the running backs, like Xavier Johnson and some of the guys that we've had in the past who could do multiple things, bring so much value to the table.
“And so for me, if you're a tight end and you can line up in the backfield and do some of those things that a fullback's asked to do, you bring value. If all you can do is line up and do those things as a fullback, you lose value, because now you know when he's in the game, it's two backs. So to answer your question, we're trying to find as many guys who can do multiple things so that we don't get nailed down when teams are game planning us.”
Here it is also worth remembering they really did have a fullback in 2021, and he was in fact a former running back (and walk-on). Mitch Rossi also lined up in the slot and on the line of scrimmage at times, so he had the stuff Day described Tuesday.
Rossi was more Keller (a bulked up tailback from Cincinnati) than Sualua (a battering ram from California), but this body-type discussion reminded me of the beginning of the Urban Meyer era. He inherited a roster that had a three-year starting fullback in Zach Boren, who was listed as a linebacker when he signed in 2009, and early on there were a few attempts to get him involved in Meyer’s offense.
He eventually moved to linebacker and helped stabilize a defense that was struggling in the middle of the season, and that was the end of the fullback or anything like it until Rossi.
The crux of the discussion was what would the non-running back/non-receivers look like in the offense.
Meyer (or one of his assistants; I don’t remember which) said if they were like Boren — 6-foot, 240 or so — then they would be a fullback, but if they were more like 6-4, 260, they would be a tight end, but their job descriptions would be pretty much the same. Then it turned out they just never brought in anyone in the Boren mold again so it didn’t matter.
You don’t have to worry about how to use a fullback-type guy if you don’t have one on the roster, but that is just another reason the Meyer offense had grown really stale and was pigeonholed into doing things certain ways by the end of his tenure.
I love a fullback, of course, but the main reason we see a lot more 12 personnel than 21 now is that having the non-runner/non-receiver line up on the line of scrimmage alters how the defense has to treat him because he is an immediate downfield passing threat rather than having to come out of the backfield.
With two tight ends, you can widen the surface the defense must defense, but a fullback allows you to add a gap to either side of the formation without giving it away before the snap so there are pros and cons to everything.
Nate Roberts has lined up at fullback a handful of times this season for Ohio State. He was a four-star tight end recruit in the class of 2025 from Washington, Okla. He is listed 6-5, 240, so he’s definitely more of a tight end body type, but it’s cool they are trying to develop someone in that role.
I don’t know if they need to actively recruit a fullback (Tressel only recruited three guys listed as fullbacks on signing day in 11 classes), but I’m sure there are only a few hundred 6-foot, 200-pound running backs at Ohio high schools right now who could add 25-30 pounds and learn to hunt linebackers without forgetting how to make them miss from time to time, too.
If you want to see more of what Day had to say Tuesday or any other day since the start of the preseason, check out my YouTube channel, and for more great sportswriting, check out my buddy Matt Brown’s newsletter that focuses on the business of college sports.
