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Football
Pryor Not Among OSU’s Captains for 2010
By Brandon Castel

COLUMBUS — Terrelle Pryor might be the director of Ohio State’s offense in 2010, but he’s not the leader of the Buckeyes. Not yet, anyway.

Terrelle Pryor
Photo by Dan Harker

Pryor and his OSU teammates elected six captains for the 2010 season on Wednesday—something that has only been done one other time in school history—but the starting quarterback was not among them.

Despite entering his third season under center for the second-ranked Buckeyes, Pryor will have to wait until next year if he wants to join the esteemed ranks of plays to bear the captaincy at one of college football’s most storied programs.

“This is one of those honors you think about since you were a kid, being captain of your team,” said defensive end Cameron Heyward, one of the six players elected Wednesday. 

“It’s a tremendous feeling.”

Like Heyward, the other five captains were all seniors; two from the defensive side—linebackers Ross Homan and Brian Rolle—along with three from the offense—wideout Dane Sanzenbacher, running back Brandon Saine and offensive lineman Bryant Browning.

“I have tried to be a leader throughout my career. I hope this shows that my teammates appreciate what I have done,” Browning said.

“Now I am hoping to be one of the leaders of a great team, a championship team.”

Those six players join a historic list of names, one that includes legends like Chic Harley, Rex Kern, Jim Stillwagon, Archie Griffin, Tom Cousineau, Keith Byars, Chris Spielman, Eddie George, Antoine Winfield, Mike Doss, Craig Krenzel, A.J. Hawk and Troy Smith.

“It’s a real honor to be mentioned among these great leaders,” said Sanzenbacher, a wide receiver with 69 career catches from Toledo Central Catholic.

“I don’t think it will change much for me; I just want to continue to contribute to this program any way I can.”

It marks just the second time in Ohio State’s 121-season football history that six Buckeyes will serve as season-long leaders for the squad. The only other time it happened was in 1982, when Glen Cobb, Jerome Foster, Joe Lukens, Marcus Marek, Tim Spencer and Gary Williams all served as captains under Head Coach Earle Bruce.

Since Jim Tressel took over 2001, there have been 32 captains at Ohio State not including the six freshly-named faces for 2010. Of those 38 players, only one—linebacker James Laurinaitis—was named a captain during his junior season. Laurinaitis, who was also named a captain the following year as a senior, was voted in as a junior on a leadership-void 2007 team that still won 11 games.

Even Krenzel—considered by many to be one of the finest field generals in school history—had to wait until his senior season to captain the Buckeyes. That didn’t stop him from leading Ohio State to the BCS National Title as a junior in 2002.

“A leader has a responsibility to take care of business,” said Heyward, Ohio State’s biggest star on the defensive side of the ball.

Pryor will be a junior this fall, but he is just now really coming into his own as a leader on and off the field.

“Terrelle’s a great leader. As a freshman he struggled with the leadership role a little bit, but last year, and especially this year, he’s really grasping that,” said senior guard Justin Boren.

“He’s definitely the leader of the offense.”

He is the preseason Offensive Player of the Year in the Big Ten, and one of the top candidates for the Heisman Trophy heading into 2010, but Pryor recognizes that it takes more than notoriety to earn the respect and trust of the other 104 guys in the locker room.

“It starts off the field, then when you get on the field all the guys will just come around you,” Pryor said.

“You have to show it, that you're doing it and you're capable on the field to make some plays. That's the main thing.”

Pryor admits it was hard for him to be one of the guys when he arrived in 2008, especially after he displaced fifth-year senior Todd Boeckman as the starting quarterback just four games into his rookie season.

Today he feels much more like “one of the guys.”

“It started with me talking to the guys a lot more, being around the guys, loving being around the guys, spending a lot of time with the guys. Going to their houses to eat with them,” he said.

“Making sure everyone is doing everything right, and myself doing everything right. I can't be a leader if I'm not doing the things I'm trying to preach to the guys.”

If he can do that, Pryor will prove that not all leaders have to wear the “C.”

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