Ohio State’s Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Jordan Hancock Available Against Iowa
Hancock #Hancock
The Buckeyes will be without 14 players against the Hawkeyes, including starting cornerback Cameron Brown.
After missing the last three games with a lingering hamstring injury, Ohio State junior wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba will be available for Saturday’s game against Iowa (12 p.m. on FOX).
The same goes for sophomore cornerback Jordan Hancock, who was unavailable for the first six games with a lower-body injury, though it’s unclear exactly how much the two will be able to play against the Hawkeyes.
“We try to take a lot of the gray (area) out of it and just say that they’re available or they’re not available to play,” head coach Ryan Day said on Thursday. “Whether they’re available to play for an entire game or not, that’s different. Those are the decisions that we continue to – for all of our guys – look at and try to figure out how many plays is the right number of plays.
“You hear people talk about pitch count and thinks like that. We talk about those things all the time, so that’ll be the case for some guys – and not just in particular to Jaxon – but that is part of the discussions going into games for some players.”
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Fifth-year senior cornerback Cameron Brown will miss his third game in four weeks with an undisclosed injury, while redshirt sophomore safety Kourt Williams will be sidelined with what Day described this week as a “long-term injury” after being spotted with his right arm in a sling on Wednesday.
“When you have a captain who is not able to get on the field, it’s not great,” Day said. “The good thing for us is we have really good leadership on the team, so it hasn’t been felt as much, but all the coaches and certainly the players who elected him a captain have a lot of respect for Kourt.”
The full list of players who are unavailable for Saturday’s game against the Hawkeyes is below:
Unavailable:
• Freshman defensive end Omari Abor
• Fifth-year senior wide receiver Kamryn Babb• Fifth-year senior cornerback Cameron Brown• Freshman running back T.C. Caffey• Redshirt freshman wide receiver Corban Cleveland• Fifth-year senior defensive end Tyler Friday
• Fifth-year senior cornerback Lloyd McFarquhar
• Redshirt sophomore defensive end Mitchell Melton
• Fifth-year senior linebacker Teradja Mitchell• Redshirt freshman linebacker Jalen Pace• Redshirt freshman running back Evan Pryor• Redshirt freshman defensive lineman Bryce Prater• Redshirt sophomore tight end Joe Royer• Redshirt sophomore safety Kourt Williams
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