ARLINGTON, Texas -- Mike Weber wasn't singing. He was crying.

Standing with his arm around long snapper Liam McCullough during Ohio State's post-Cotton Bowl rendition of Carmen Ohio, Weber stared off into the distance, silent with tears streaming down his face. He looked like a player who knew that his college career was over.

Even 20 minutes later, still in full uniform and pads, Weber sat at his locker inside AT&T Stadium trying to stifle the tears in a loud, celebratory locker room.

We've seen that look from players before. Ezekiel Elliott cried during the national anthem before his final game in Ohio Stadium. There was no official announcement that he would be leaving after the season, but Elliott knew it, and got emotional before his final game.

That's what Weber looked like. Sad. Like he knew in that moment that he'd never put on an Ohio State uniform again. So I asked him after the game if he had made that decision already.

"No not yet," he said.

His emotions were more complicated than that.

Weber had big plans this year. Coming off a season in which he became just the third Ohio State running back ever to rush for 1,000 yards in his freshman season, Weber felt poised to come back stronger, put up bigger numbers and probably, if we're being honest, go off to the NFL on a high note. That didn't happen.

Instead Weber suffered a setback before training camp when a hamstring injury nearly required surgery that would have ended his season before it started. He rehabbed through it, felt it tweak a couple times throughout the season, and by the time he felt really good, it was kind of too late.

Weber went from dreams of being the featured back at Ohio State to being the third rushing option this season behind freshman J.K. Dobbins and quarterback J.T. Barrett. Weber, who had 182 carries for 1,096 yards last year, saw that workload drop to 101 carries for 626 yards in 2017.

"This year didn't play out how I wanted to, of course," Weber said. "I had a bump in the road at the beginning of the season. It was kind of hard to manage and control that, because I've never been through anything like that before. But I got around the right people. My family and coach's pressed me, did their job and got me back to where I needed to be. By the time I got healthy it was toward the end of the season and I just did what I did at that point."

Weber had just five carries against USC. He had four carries in the Big Ten Championship against Wisconsin. He played in 12 of Ohio State's 14 games, and had fewer than 10 carries in seven of them. With Barrett at quarterback, there just isn't room for two running backs to get a big workload. Barrett is a de facto running back.

So it was surely frustrating for Weber, who's said and done a lot of the right things over the past two years, to know that once he got hurt in the summer, things weren't going to be the same.

We heard a lot about the work Weber had put in, that he was faster, and that showed. He had two long touchdown runs against Michigan State. He iced Michigan with another long scoring run. We heard Dobbins was a burner. There were times this year when Weber looked as fast, if not faster.

But by the time Weber was able to flash his wheels, Dobbins had already cemented himself as the top back. And Barrett is Barrett. Carries were scarce.

Weber did what he could with his opportunities. His yards per carry was slightly better this year (6.0 in 2016, 6.2 in 2017) and when Ohio State was in throw mode, it was Weber who came in because he's better in pass protection than Dobbins. Weber also improved his scoring touch, rushing for 10 touchdowns this year after posting nine last year.

He did his part in the little bit he got on the field in the Cotton Bowl, and enjoyed the win as much as anyone.

"Of course I'm happy," he said. "I'm happy and sad at the same time. It's something, you get emotional when you know you've been through some things and stuff like that. It hit me kind of hard to see that."

Sad tears, happy tears and now a decision for Weber.

Dobbins is the No. 1 running back next year. That's pretty solid. But Barrett is gone, and his likely successor, Dwayne Haskins, is not the kind of runner who will take carries away from the running backs. Fans will point to Urban Meyer's penchant for running the quarterback anyway. That would be a serious misuse of Haskins' abilities.

So it's possible for Weber to come back, salvage some of what he missed in 2017 and then move on the way he always wanted to. But that's no guarantee.

Perhaps that was biggest, and harshest, lesson dealt to Weber this year. There are no guarantees. He did looked poised for something better this year, and lost out on that because of something mostly out of his control.

Does he want to come back and re-write his Ohio State story?

Or is he ready to move on and try to start a new one?

"If that's the decision (to move on) I feel like I'm physically ready," Weber said. "There are a few people I need to get with to get the mental side of it and I feel like I'll be alright at that point. But like I said, I'd love to come back and play for the Ohio State Buckeyes ... whatever happens."