Ryan Day provides update on star safety Lathan Ransom

COLUMBUS — Ohio State is set for a top-five matchup at Penn State this upcoming week, and the Buckeyes are hopeful one of their stars could potentially be in line for a return.

Nothing is guaranteed, to be clear, but Ohio State coach Ryan Day provided a promising and hopeful update on star safety and leader for the defense Lathan Ransom ahead of the game in Happy Valley.

“We’re excited to get a full week of practice out of Lathan,” Day said Tuesday. “So we’ll kind of see again how the week goes with him. But good to know that we’ve built some depth back there for Jordan Hancock to move into another position going into last week’s game with just a really a week of preparation I thought was excellent.”

Ohio State turned to freshman safety Jaylen McClain and veteran nickel Lorenzo Styles Jr. in place of Ransom, who missed the narrow win over Nebraska on Saturday. The duo of replacements performed admirably as the Buckeyes had a bounce-back defensive effort against the Cornhuskers.

“We do have some flexibility there moving him around,” Day said. “I thought Lorenzo Styles and Jermaine [Matthews] played well in that game as well, both graded out. So that was good to see because obviously, the depth back there was a little bit of a concern. But then Jaylen McClain gave us some quality reps back there. So there was quite a few guys getting reps.

“So now we’ll go into this game with Lathan coming back kind of figure out what that looks like going into it.”

Ransom is a major piece of the puzzle for this Ohio State defense, and he’s certainly missed when he’s not in the game.