Ohio State Starters Suspended For Opener

Two Ohio State starters were suspended Saturday, one day after the program was ranked #2 in preseason polls. Running back Rod Smith and cornerback Bradley Roby will sit out OSU’s opener vs. Buffalo August 31, as reported by the Columbus Dispatch. Leading scorer Carlos Hyde was suspended last month for the Buffalo game as well.

Roby was arrested in July after getting into an altercation with a bouncer at a Bloomington, IN bar, according to Yahoo! Sports. There was video evidence that showed that Roby was not the aggressor in the incident.

The judge in the case has offered Roby a pretrial diversion with the hope that the case may be dismissed. Meyer says Roby could still be suspended. “He was there and he shouldn’t be there,” Meyer said.

Smith’s situation is a little bit different. He’s shined in practice, but Meyer makes it very clear that “it’s the 11th hour” for the suspended starter. Smith missed a team flight to a bowl game in 2011. Smith was slated to start after Hyde was suspended. But he broke a team rule back in February, thus causing his current suspension.

Meyer had been under fire recently for what is a perceived lack of discipline over his teams. His tenure at the University of Florida was filled with numerous player arrests for a wide swath of charges. More scrutiny came down on how Meyer ran his program after the Aaron Hernandez murder case.

This is not the first time that Ohio State has suspended starters from the football team. A highly publicized scandal in 2011 led to a one-year bowl ban for Ohio State and the suspension of five players after it was found that these players were ineligible and played in a bowl game.

Is it merely a coincidence that Meyer’s players have a penchant for trouble?