Tight end Jake Stoneburner is the leading candidate to have a breakout season for Ohio State, and he may be the second tight end in a decade of Jim Tressel football to catch 30 passes.
Jake Stoneburner has convinced Ohio State coaches that he can be a primary option as a tight end this season.COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Jake Stoneburner took off down the middle of the field and quarterback Terrelle Pryor hit him for a 25-yard gain. The play was a bright spot for the first team in Ohio State's team scrimmage last weekend, and the Buckeyes seemed to execute it easily.
A 6-5, 245-pound former high-school receiving star found space in the middle of the field, and a quarterback entering his third year as a starter found him. Part of the game.
The only thing unusual about it was that Stoneburner is a tight end, and OSU tight ends don't typically make catches like that -- or, rather, don't have the chance to.
That should change this season, with the redshirt sophomore tight end with two career catches the leading OSU candidate for a breakout season.
In eight of Jim Tressel's nine years at Ohio State, the No. 1 tight end caught between six and 17 passes, the exception being Ben Hartsock's 33-catch, 290-yard season in 2003. Stoneburner seems like another exception because of who he is, what the Buckeyes don't have at receiver and where Pryor is now as a passer.
"I think it's going to happen this year," Stoneburner said. "With Terrelle throwing the ball a lot we will have a lot of opportunities. And with me and him being pretty good friends and having a lot of confidence in me, I think that'll help, too."
With Taurian Washington leading redshirt freshman Chris Fields and true freshman Corey Brown in the battle to be the No. 3 receiver, Stoneburner is a good bet to end this season third among the Buckeyes in receptions, behind top two receivers DeVier Posey and Dane Sanzenbacher.
Too often in the past, the tight end has been left out of the offense for one of two reasons:
• There were just too many talented wide receivers, as high-round NFL picks from Michael Jenkins to Chris Gamble to Santonio Holmes to Ted Ginn Jr. to Anthony Gonzalez to Brian Robiskie to Brian Hartline made their way through the program. While Posey and Sanzenbacher are proven, there's a dropoff after the top two.
• Young quarterbacks working into the system weren't as comfortable making throws into the crowded middle of the field, where a tight end does his best work. Don't consider it a coincidence that Hartsock's big season came in quarterback Craig Krenzel's senior year.
As a freshman, John Simon (54) earned some quality playing time on the OSU defense. As a sophomore, he could be one of that unit's most important players.So now there's less receiver depth and an experienced quarterback. Into that equation throw Stoneburner, who, as Tressel said, isn't on the field to line up and block Iowa defensive end Adrian Clayborn 10 straight times.
"I think he'll give us a little bit different look," Tressel said. "He won't just line up and knock people off the ball. I think he has a little quickness about him, and he has terrific hips."
Expect Stoneburner to prove at least 30 times this season that his hands are pretty good, too.
Here are four other breakout candidates, considered only if they, like Stoneburner, are not one of the 19 Buckeyes who have started more than two games in their careers.
2. Defensive tackle John Simon: He flashed while forcing his way onto the field as a true freshman, and now in his first season as a starter, the sophomore and one of the strongest players on the team should prove he can be disruptive as three-down player.
"I expect the world out of him," senior defensive lineman Cameron Heyward said. "I saw him running extra this summer, I saw him lifting extra, just trying to get better. He had a great freshman year, so I always tell him you can't have that sophomore slump -- you might have that Cameron Heyward sophomore slump. So he's trying to get better than that."
3. DE Nathan Williams: Assuming Williams is back from a left knee injury for Thursday's opener with Marshall, or at least for the Sept. 11 game with Miami, the redshirt sophomore is in the same boat as Simon. As a first-year starter, he needs to prove he can do on a regular basis what he did as a pass-rush specialist last year.
4. Strongside LB Andrew Sweat: The junior beat out Etienne Sabino for the job and should pick up where he left off when ACL surgery cut short his 2009 season.
"Andrew Sweat has been good since he's been here," Tressel said. "It hurt us losing him last year. That hurt our special teams; that hurt our depth."
Even as a starter, Sweat's issue will be playing time, as he's the linebacker who will come off the field when the Buckeyes go to their nickel defense. SAM LB starter Austin Spitler, for instance, barely played in the Rose Bowl last year because of that. Sweat is also playing the position for the first time after working at weakside and middle linebacker in the past. But with what he's already done in the preseason, there's no reason to doubt he won't play more and better than expected.
5. CB Travis Howard: The only non-starter on this list, Howard is a redshirt sophomore and the clear No. 3 corner behind senior starters Chimdi Chekwa and Devon Torrence. They both battled injuries during he preseason, so it's not unreasonable to expect Howard will start at least a couple games as an injury replacement sometime this season. If that happens, the Buckeyes may not see much of a drop off.
"This is one of the first years I actually put in a lot of work," Howard, who also has battled injuries in the past, said early in camp. "I've doing a lot of extra work and I feel I'm in the best health I've been in."