Ohio State football’s forgotten running back remained a Buckeye for a reason

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Evan Pryor at first did not realize the significance when he executed a wheel route, took a hit and bounced back up in Ohio State football’s second preseason practice.
Running backs coach Tony Alford explained it to the third-year back in the next huddle. About 50 weeks earlier, Pryor attempted essentially the same play in a preseason practice. That day, he ruptured the patellar tendon in his left knee, ending his season before it started and halting the progress made in the preceding months.
When Pryor walked off the field Friday, healthy and in the end stages of recovery from that trauma, he began to feel like the player he was before the injury. He admits his first time back he was “scared out of my pants.” The first few practices of preseason camp lifted “a huge, huge weight off my shoulders.”
“I need stuff like that,” Pryor said. “I need to get roughed up. I need to hit the ground. I need to run wheel routes and the same plays I got hurt on.
“This is a situation I’m just trying to put behind me, so I can put my best foot forward.”
Pryor came in as one half of a recruiting coup for Alford in 2021. TreVeyon Henderson served as the headline, but Pryor – a top-100 prospect with lead back potential – expected to help solidify the backfield for multiple years. Then came the torn tendon, forcing him to watch while Miyan Williams locked down a big share of the snaps and freshman Dallan Hayden emerged in the second half of the season.
Pryor is fully cleared now after being limited to individual drills in the spring. Alford, though, said Pryor is being eased back into a full workload. With the deepest room Alford has experienced at OSU, there is no urgency to rush Pryor back for the team’s sake. That may also mean several more weeks of patience and trusting the process for a player who believes he could play tomorrow in any number of other programs.
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“He could definitely help out in a lot of ways,” Williams said of Pryor. Asked for specifics, Williams laughed off the request. “I don’t want to say.”
Alford said all five of the scholarship backs in his room could have pursued other options. Pryor confirmed he considered leaving, in the latter part of his rehab process. He heard through channels that other teams would welcome him.
In the end, he decided changing programs at less than full health would be difficult. He also felt a responsibility to see things through.
“I’m a man of my word,” Pryor said. “Me and coach Alford, we committed to this three years ago. He’s given me everything he’s had. I’m gonna give him everything I have.
“I know he’s gonna lead me in the right direction. He’s not gonna steer me wrong. So I’m good with the decision and where I am.”
Alford saw how Pryor’s connection with the other running backs during that season lost to injury helped keep him in the program.
“He’s never b------,” Alford said. “He’s never moaned. He’s never had a cross eye or a cross thing to say. He just keeps coming back, saying ‘Give me more.’ So that’s a testament to who he is as a young man.”
Still, Pryor is clearly eager to get back on the field. He did not play his senior high school season in North Carolina when the pandemic forced the season’s postponement into the winter. He took a redshirt in his first season in Columbus, carrying 21 times in four games. Last season, he could only carry crutches.
Ohio State’s other running backs dedicated their season to Pryor following his injury. They had seen his dedication through that redshirt season and the following spring. They saw the open-field bursts and pass-catching ability that could add another wrinkle to the offense.
Pryor is reserving final judgment on his readiness until the Buckeyes go live with hitting. His long-term outlook, though, is back in focus. In addition to those wheel routes, he’s working on making tacklers miss and outrunning defenders. All the skills that made him an intriguing piece going into camp a year ago are returning to his arsenal.
“I know that I’m good enough to play here still -- I do,” Pryor said. “I see myself carving out a role this season. At what point this season, I don’t know. I know I’m good enough to get on the field, though.”
Every healthy step he takes in camp only reaffirms that confidence.
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