Denzel Burke is 'ready to roll' for Ohio State against Rutgers

Ohio State cornerback Denzel Burke missed the Buckeye’s last game versus Wisconsin last week, the first he’s missed in his two seasons, but will be back in action for their defense this weekend as they take on Rutgers according to head coach Ryan Day.

“It was too close from when it occurred to put him in the game, and now he’s had a good week of practice, so great to see him back,” Day said.

Burke participated in pregame warmups last week with a large, padded club over his right hand, but did not end up suiting up for the Buckeyes. When he’s back in action this week, it will be interesting to see what protective equipment he sports considering the importance of hands at the cornerback position, as coach Day and his staff monitor his status.

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“And we’ll see, maybe something that we have to keep an eye on here for the remainder of the season and protect it, but we’ll kind of see how it heals and how it does,” Day said. “But he’s gonna be ready to roll this week and excited to see him back on the field.”

The Buckeyes were also missing their other starting corner Cameron Brown last week, who suffered an injury versus Toledo, and getting back both of their best defensive backs this week would be a huge boost to their defense.

Ryan Day addresses toughness shown in win over Wisconsin

Ohio State remains unbeaten after a dominant performance in their first conference game of the season, as they defeated Wisconsin 52-21 at home. Head coach Ryan Day is proud of what he saw from his team on Saturday and the whole season thus far a third of the way through.

“I think we’ve shown what we can do, now whether we do it every week, now that’s on us. But I think you can see what this team’s made of and I think we’ve shown that in the first four games what we can do, what we’re capable of,” Day said.

Both sides of the ball showed up Saturday for the Buckeyes, as they generated 539 yards of total offense and held the Badgers to less than 300 total yards. Ohio State has shown both sides of the ball can be effective for them, but Day knows the most important thing is keeping that consistent throughout the season.

“The big challenge as we all know in college football is you have to bring it every week and that’s the competitive stamina we’ve been talking about,” Day explained. “Every single week you got to bring it, so as good as this feels and as much as we want to celebrate this, we can’t spend too much time patting ourselves on the back after this thing, which is hard because this is one heck of a win for us.”

Day does not want to dwell on their impressive victory, but did acknowledge some of the areas he was proud of regarding his team’s performance this weekend.

“I mean to play like we did tonight, that was a lot of work, and I’m very very proud of our team, I’m proud of our players, proud of the way the defense came in, some of the ways the guys stepped up. I mean there’s a lot of good to go around this game,” Day said. “But the tough thing is you don’t have much time to talk about that, you gotta be on to the next team. But we’ll try to enjoy this the best we can tonight and a little bit tomorrow.”