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As Ohio State football's RB room changes, coach Carlos Locklyn's tough love prevails
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- As Ohio State football's RB room changes, coach Carlos Locklyn's tough love prevails
Two 1,000-yard, second-round NFL draft picks are gone from Ohio State 's backfield.
Buckeyes running backs coach Carlos Locklyn isn't looking for sophomore James Peoples and West Virginia transfer CJ Donaldson – or whoever else emerges – to duplicate what TreVeyon Henderson and Quinshon Judkins did for the Buckeyes last year.
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But what hasn't changed are Locklyn's lofty demands for his unit.
Ohio State running backs coach Carlos Locklyn works with running back CJ Donaldson during a July 31 practice.
"He preaches all the time there's a method to the madness," Peoples said. "The one thing he really stresses is that we play as one in the running back room. You've got to put yourself aside. You've got to trust that he's a great coach. He's done this for a long time."
What exactly is the madness?
"I guess the madness is coach Lock," Peoples said. "Through everything that he's going to be pouring into you and challenging you, there's a method to it all, so that's what he's going to get out of you."
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The Buckeyes will need that from their running backs. Henderson and Judkins were as good as any tandem in the country last year. Locklyn's job is to keep his running backs' production from slipping. That doesn't just mean rushing yards. He demands that they pick up blitzes, something Henderson excelled at last year. It means catching passes. It means not fumbling.
If that means getting in a player's face to ensure that, Locklyn makes no apologies. After all, his first career was in law enforcement. He broke into coaching by volunteering at multiple high schools in Memphis, Tennessee.
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"It's a mindset," Locklyn said. "They didn't come here for me to be nice to them. I told them, 'I ain't your best friend. I'm not trying to be your best friend. If you want to be my friend, guess how you can be my friend? Make plays. Do your job. We can be best friends all day then.'"
Locklyn is in his second year with the Buckeyes. He left Oregon when Tony Alford bolted Ohio State during spring practice last year to join Michigan . (Oregon sued Locklyn, claiming he owes a $400,000 buyout for leaving. According to multiple reports, Oregon rejected a $200,000 payment from Locklyn.)
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It didn't take long for Donaldson to embrace the Locklyn ethos after he transferred.
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"We play as one," he said. "That's something coach Lock emphasizes. We all dress the same, we look the same because we talk the same language, and we all go play as one."
The expectation is that Donaldson and Peoples will share the load this season, but Locklyn said playing time will sort itself out through competition.
"If you think you've arrived in that room, you're going to get your feelings hurt because I'm going to make sure I hurt them," Locklyn said. "You've got to come to work every day. If you don't humble yourself, I will.
"None of my kids take offense to it because I'm going to wrap my arms around them after I get on them. When I cross that scarlet line, I turn into a whole other person. It starts in the meeting room. My wife beats me up at home when I come at them, but I'm trying to (instill) that it's a mindset."
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Locklyn's intensity never wavers, he said, because he is determined to prepare his players for life beyond their Buckeye careers.
"If I just talk about football with the young men, I'm setting them up for failure," Locklyn said. "It's bigger than ball. That ball is going to go flat someday.
"If I haven't given him the tools – what it is to be a man of faith, what it is to be a husband one day, to see what it is to be a good father, to be just a good citizen – I haven't done my job."
Donaldson ran for 2,058 yards and 30 touchdowns in three years at West Virginia . But he has learned that playing under Locklyn at Ohio State is different. It took him until Aug. 6 to lose his black helmet stripe, signifying full-fledged status on the team.
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"The first thing (Locklyn) told me was that everything I get here, I'm going to have to earn it," Donaldson said. "He told me he was going to challenge me. He was going to bring a different personality and a different animal out of me. I need that challenge. It's important to be challenged."
Ohio State football beat writer Bill Rabinowitz can be reached at brabinowitz@dispatch.com or on bluesky at billrabinowitz@bsky.social.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: As Ohio State's RB room changes, Carlos Locklyn's tough love prevails
