COLUMBUS, Ohio - One Ohio State running back returning to his role after a suspension, and another Ohio State running back disappearing as a result.

It has happened before, and Saturday it happened again, with Carlos Hyde now experiencing both sides of the situation.

In 2011, Hyde was a sophomore who carried the ball 13 times for 108 yards in a loss at Nebraska on Oct. 8. The next week, Hyde rushed the ball just three times for eight yards. Why? Because Dan Herron had returned from a six-game suspension and moved back to the top of the depth chart.

Ohio State beat Illinois, as Herron ran it 23 times for 114 yards in a 17-7 win, and Hyde wrote on Twitter after the game, "Guess I'm not good enough. Take myself elsewhere."

So we know a change in circumstance can ruffle feathers. This time, it's Jordan Hall's circumstances that shifted.

Hyde, obviously, didn't go anywhere. He stayed and last year led OSU running backs with 970 rushing yards. He looked like a strong candidate for 1,000-yard rushing season before an off-field incident led to a three-game suspension to start this year. So the Buckeyes turned to Hall as their primary running back, even though he had worked at H-back in the spring.





Jordan Hall, (2) dove for the endzone against San Diego State and carried the running back load for Ohio State in the first three games, but he was almost forgotten against Wisconsin. Ohio State coaches want to change that against Northwestern on Saturday and get Hall back involved.

Hall gained 159 rushing yards in the opener against Buffalo and 168 against Cal, as Urban Meyer said even before the season that Hyde wouldn't necessarily go back to the top of the depth chart when he returned. The coach couldn't stop saying good things about Hall, who after three weeks was getting 32 percent of the offensive chances, more than triple the touches of any other skill position player.



In the week four blowout of Florida A&M, Hyde returned with five carries for 41 yards, while Hall ran the ball just four times for 20 yards. The chances in that 76-point win went to the backups.

For the first real test of the year against Wisconsin, the Buckeyes had the chance to truly deploy their top two backs for the first time. And they went with one.

Hyde ran 17 times for 85 yards in Saturday's 31-24 win and caught one pass. Hall didn't even step on the field until the second quarter, and he got one carry for five yards and didn't catch a ball.

Quite a change. The Buckeyes had to be happy to see Hyde back in form, but you wonder what Hall thought about it all. Hall and Hyde weren't among the Buckeyes available to talk to reporters after the win or on Monday, but the Buckeyes aren't worried about an issue.



"Jordan is a veteran guy. He's doing a great job of showing us that he is handling it well," senior left tackle and captain Jack Mewhort said. "That's the great thing about Jordan. I'm not worried about him doing any of that negative stuff in the locker room, because he's a great guy."



He's a guy the coaches agree deserves a bigger role in the gameplan. When No. 4 Ohio State (5-0, 1-0 Big Ten) visits No. 16 Northwestern (4-0) on Saturday, maybe there will be an actual one-two punch



"Jordan Hall has got to be involved," Meyer said. "That was a decision we kind of made. We knew it was going to be very hard to run in there the way they play their defensive line. Those are our top two backs, and we are working on that now. So I want to make sure we get Jordan Hall involved."

With a lot of options on offense, spreading the ball around can be difficult, and the players know that. Meyer was peeved after Philly Brown had just two catches in week one. He had six in week two. The Buckeyes made sure to force the ball to Evan Spencer and Jeff Heuerman against Florida A&M after they blocked so well against Cal but didn't get many chances to catch the ball. Coaches have said it before and they'll keep saying - too many options is a great problem to have.



"It's actually awesome," Meyer said. "It's not as difficult as the other one where you don't have the puzzle pieces of the checkerboard that you like. And we have several."

But Meyer also believes a certain kind of player earns his chances. And the coaches should honor that.

"The young man that goes to class, that lives right, practices hard, that does it right, that's real hard for me because I get really close with these players, all our coaches do and you just want to do right by him," Meyer said. "The kid that doesn't go to class, the guy that's a pain, no, it's not hard at all. Stand back and watch these guys play. And we have a good majority of our guys do everything right. So that is difficult, especially when you're talking about a kid like Jordan Hall."

This offensive absence should be temporary. On a night when the Buckeyes ran only 68 plays, and of the 43 rushing plays, 22 were by quarterback Braxton Miller, Hall's vanishing act just happened. Ohio State doesn't want it to happen again.

Hall is a different back than Hyde, and not as equipped to run between the tackles against a team like Wisconsin. But he can help this offense. And he should get that chance again.

"The plan was to increase Carlos' role, there's no doubt about that," offensive coordinator Tom Herman said. "I don't think we had gone into the game and said, 'Hey, Jordan Hall's going to get one carry.' That's not what we intended. So we did not plan for that. And by that happening, that's our fault, my fault.

"He's such a good kid, he's not going to stand there and say, 'Put me in, coach.' ... And you look up at the end of the day and he's got one carry. We've got to do a better job next week of making sure that we chart how many plays he's in, how many he's touching the football. Because he's good enough and he deserves that. We failed him a little bit there. But it certainly wasn't by design."