Ryan Watts showing star potential after productive spring for Buckeyes

COLUMBUS — Ohio State cornerback Ryan Watts made up for lost time this spring.

His freshman season was full of interruptions due to the pandemic and a lack of reps, both in practice and games. But this spring, Watts finally had the time he needed. He was afforded much-needed reps, which just weren’t available last season.

The former four-star prospect is a tall, lengthy athlete who breaks the mold of a typical cornerback at Ohio State. He’s got the speed to run with receivers while maintaining an advantage brought by his size. And with a spring full of action now behind him, Watts has a chance to help the Buckeyes turn their pass defense around from a season ago when it was one of the worst in program history. Ohio State defensive coordinator Kerry Coombs likes what Watts can do for the Buckeyes.

“He had a great spring at over 500 reps,” Coombs said. “He is tall. He is the tallest corner that I’ve ever coached, but he is able to transition his body in short-space quickness. He’s got long speed. Because of his length, I think getting his hands on wide receivers at the line of scrimmage will be of paramount importance to him. He has the ability to have range in zone. Sometimes when you have that big wingspan, you can get your hands on balls. So those taller guys can also do that in zone coverage.”

Ohio State expected to use spring practice to correct what went wrong in the secondary last season. Instead, the Buckeyes were without their top two cornerbacks, Sevyn Banks and Cameron Brown, for most of the 15 practices.

Add in a light workload for Lejond Cavazos and other injuries as camp went on, and the Buckeyes were certainly thin at cornerback in March and April. But Ryan Watts was healthy.

“It was a great experience for those kids this spring,” Coombs said. “A lot of young kids getting a lot of reps. You don’t want guys to get injured, but at the same time, it afforded the opportunity for us to coach some depth in the backend. It’s so much different from where we were a year ago, just in numbers and depth across the board in the back end.”

After a spring of development and growth, capped off with an interception in the Spring Game, Watts will now add to the depth in a secondary that was lacking depth on the way to the title game last year.

But he has a chance to be more than just added depth at cornerback.

“The depth in the back end is going to help us,” Coombs said. “Having kids who can run, having kids who can cover and having kids who can play so that a corner doesn’t take 78 snaps in a game, so that we can rotate guys and keep guys fresh and keep things moving along. Same thing at the safety spots. Being able to play fresh guys will pay us great dividends in the fall.”

Now the question for Watts: Is he added depth or can he make a run at a starting slot? Brown and Banks were both starters last season before Brown tore his Achilles in the second game of the year. Banks became the Buckeyes best cover cornerback as the season went on. Both are penciled in as presumptive starters right now. But Coombs has had three-man cornerback rotations in the past, and Watts could force Coombs to have another three-man cornerback rotation again this season.

If the spring was any indication, Ryan Watts needs to be on the field this fall after making up for lost time last year.

“I thought it was very good and productive spring for Ryan,” Coombs said. “I am excited for him in the fall.”

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