Ohio State's Bo Jackson and can he avoid the Buckeye Curse for Year 2 running backs?
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome back to the Bill & Doug Show. Doug LaMaurice and Bill Landis. Next time you hear or see us, we will be at the NFL Combine. So look for that on this YouTube feed, on this podcast channel. Also look for it at our Substack, where we will be doing a show. A Substack show from there. We'll be writing from there. We will be at the NFL Combine on Wednesday and Thursday. You can find us at billanddougosu.substack.com. But before we hop in the car and drive to Indy Bill Landis, we wanted to do a show on something you just wrote for our sub stack that you didn't exactly approach it this way. But for this show, I would like to call the curse of the second year Buckeye running back. Yeah. So I, yes, it was interesting going through the, I went through the history of thousand yard freshmen.
So Bo Jackson was the fifth. I looked at it from a more national perspective, which I think can maybe make you feel good. Or you can look at it from the specific Ohio State perspective and perhaps not feel so good. Yeah, so I thought we may as well, for our Ohio State audience here, I think if you want to read the more national perspective, and we'll get into it a little bit, you can certainly go do that over on the Substack. But why don't you run us through how many other... True freshman Ohio State running backs gained a thousand yards to set the baseline here. And then I think we can talk about maybe what is similar or different between those other Ohio State running backs and then Bo Jackson, who, of course, rushed for 1090 yards last season for Ohio State.
Yeah, so at Ohio State, there have been five true freshmen. There have actually been six total freshmen, but Mike Weber was a redshirt freshman when he did it in 2016. So I didn't include him. This is just two true freshmen. Bo Jackson became the fifth this past season. Before him, it was Travion Henderson in 2021, J.K. Dobbins in 2017, Maurice Claret in 2002, and Robert Smith in 1990. And I can't always... freshmen weren't eligible to play before 1974. Is that right? Like right before Archie, I think freshman weren't allowed to play. So it's not like there's a prolonged history of true freshmen starting running backs at Ohio state, but only five, uh, have, have reached a thousand yards. Yeah. Um, and then it got like a little, uh, dicey for kind of everybody, by the way, Archie 772 yards as a true freshman.
Um, Robert Smith and Maurice Claret did not play their second years at Ohio State. And so I don't think... That's applicable to Bo Jackson. But I guess at the moment, briefly in the off season where people were wondering, is Bo Jackson going to be a Buckeye next year? That would have been the Robert Smith, Maurice Claret.
What is the Buckeye Curse for Year 2 running backs?
You're a product of your era. Like things are happening in college football. And the result is you don't take the field in year two. But you may, I mean, I don't know if people might run them through what happened with Robert Smith and Maurice Claret. So I so the Robert Smith thing was like was a dispute over academics right with an assistant coach that led him to not play football in 1991. He I think instead ran was on the track and field team and then came back to the football team. in 1992. And then Maurice Claret got suspended and never played for Ohio state again. Yeah. Tried to go to the NFL and like all the crazy stuff, all that stuff. So like Bo Jackson, like, Hey, you're great. You had a thousand yards.
Wait, you're leaving because everybody's a free agent. That would have been again, like emblematic of the times, but it didn't happen. But I do think because these are very, the, the other two examples are very fresh. I think in the minds of, of Ohio state fans and what happened with JK Dobbins and trivia on Henderson is instructive. I think, do you believe that there are perhaps lessons to be learned? If not like, Oh, like alerts maybe, but just like, Hey, let's like, keep this in mind. Yeah, the Dobbins year, definitely. The Henderson year involved an injury, but I think even in that, there probably are still some lessons you can take away from it, presuming, knock on wood, that Bo Jackson is healthy as a sophomore.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:06–3:06
2
What is the Buckeye Curse for Year 2 running backs?
3:06–6:25
3
How does Bo Jackson compare to other Ohio State freshmen running backs?
6:25–18:23
4
What lessons can be learned from JK Dobbins and Travion Henderson's sophomore seasons?
18:23–21:04
5
What factors contribute to a sophomore slump for running backs?
21:04–41:28
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