Ryan Day on captain Kamryn Babb's 'amazing' story

On Friday, senior wide receiver Kamryn Babb was elected captain of the Ohio State football team. Due to injuries, he’s appeared in just seven games in his career with the Buckeyes. 

“One of the more amazing stories I’ve been around,” Day said in a Saturday press conference. “This is a guy who has been through four ACLs, he’s currently unavailable, but he came up and spoke to the team last week about what resilience means. That was a word we spent about three days on here during camp, resilience. Something that’s a mark of a lot of successful people is the ability to be resilient and bounce back from adversity and failure and emotional pain. And he is like the epitome of that. He got up in front of the team and talked about how he did do that, how he stayed positive. He’s been an unbelievable leader. He set a standard.”

Babb has seen the field in just seven games in his career at Ohio State because of injury. His snaps have primarily been in a special teams role. 

The St. Louis native missed his freshman season after tearing his ACL in the summer of 2018. Babb had an ACL injury during his senior year of high school and a broken leg his sophomore year of high school as well.

In 2019, Babb re-injured his ACL. He missed the entire season again. With three ACL tears and a broken leg, the former top-100 recruit had his seasons end with injury in four of the previous five years.

In 2020, Babb saw the field primarily as a special teams player due to the depth of the wide receiver room in Columbus, which included Garrett Wilson and Chris Olave.

“The hard part for Kam is he just really hasn’t spent that much time on the field,” Day said. 

Regardless of playing time, Babb has already been an inspiration

“His impact has been left already on this program, and I know he wants to leave a legacy, and this is an unbelievable way for him to do that,” Day said. “He could’ve walked away two or three different times, and he hasn’t. He stuck with us. So I’m just really happy for him, and proud of what he’s done already in this program.”

All six of Ohio State’s choices are first-time captains. The Buckeyes had at least one returning captain each year since 2014.

The other captains are receiver Chris Olave, offensive tackle Thayer Munford, linebacker Teradja Mitchel, defensive tackle Haskell Garrett and defensive end Zach Harrison.

The Ohio State receiving room could be the best position group in college football

Ohio State once again has a full receiver room with a plethora of talent. As previously mentioned, senior Chris Olave is making a surprising return to Columbus and junior Garrett Wilson returns as well to create the best wide receiver duo in college football. 

Julian Fleming and Jaxon Smith-Njigba are immensely talented back ups.  The Buckeyes also have one of the best freshman receivers in the country in Emeka Egbuka, who could start in the slot according to Phil Steele.

Newly named starting quarterback C.J. Stroud will have plenty of options.