Ryan Day reveals which players stood out the most during most recent Ohio State scrimmage

Ryan Day has named at least two standouts, one apiece on offense and defense, from Ohio State’s first scrimmage of fall camp this weekend.

Day singled out those two leading players during his press conference on Thursday. He said the names of linebacker Arvell Reese and receiver Emeka Egbuka as the pair of players from each unit that won Player of the Game. However, they were just two of several that were champions in their eyes from that outing.

“You know, on defense, Arvell Reese really played well. He was the Player of the Game on defense,” said Day. “Then, on offense, Emeka was the Player of the Game – had three really good touchdown catches. The receivers played well in that game.

“Those are the guys who flashed,” Day continued. “There were other guys who graded out as champions. If I say one, I’m going to forget the rest of them. There were a handful.”

The update on Reese is intriguing with him going into his sophomore season as a Buckeye. He was only a special teams contributor as a freshman last fall. He now projects as a contributor for their defense at linebacker in year two after this month.

As for Egbuka, he’s a well-known commodity as he enters his fourth season as a graduate student. He’s their leading returning receiver who through three years has caught 124 passes overall for 1,857 yards and 14 touchdowns.

Again, though, other players also met Ohio State’s expectations and evaluated as champs in the scrimmage. That was notable considering how Day felt his coaches were monitoring them during that game. It’s now on those players to keep at that standard or for others to find a way to meet it in their next opportunities.

“We did do kind of a mock champions meeting just to make sure everybody understands what that means. That’s the ultimate goal – for each of our guys to grade out a champion,” explained Day. “If that doesn’t happen, they’ve got to figure out why that is. You’ve got to look yourself in the mirror. You’ve got to get to your position coach and figure out why you didn’t grade out over 80% in that game.

“It’s the goal of each position coach for their unit to grade out a champion,” Day continued. “I think some of the position coaches were going to grade difficult in this one to make sure they understand that we’ve all got a long way to go.”

Ohio State is going to have one more scrimmage in camp to learn what they can about their champions. From there, their next chance will be an in-game one when they kick off the opener on August 31st.

“We’ll do that again on Saturday. Then, you know, the next one would obviously be against Akron,” said Day.