Ohio junior Timothy Edmond’s vibrant personality hits someone much like a running back bursts through an open hole in the offensive line.
The lively running back from La Salle High School in Cincinnati has finally found himself in the Bobcat backfield, but took a very roundabout way to get there.
Highly recruited out of high school, Edmond took a liking to Ohio, following one of his good friends from high school, former Bobcat cornerback and current Cleveland Browns practice squad player Julian Posey.
“Off the bat, they liked me,” Edmond said. “I loved them because of the fact that they didn’t talk about just sports. They talked about parents and I value family a lot. My mom came here and they embraced her as if she was a Bobcat already, like she was a fifth-year (senior).”
But he wouldn’t join the program right away, as his grades weren’t high enough to qualify at Ohio.
Offensive coordinator Tim Albin believed in Edmond though, and set him up at Hutchinson Community College in Kansas.
While at Hutchinson, Edmond redshirted his freshman year and then played linebacker his sophomore year before returning to Athens in December of 2011.
He spent the 2012 season as linebacker with the Bobcats, but didn’t feel he was understanding and executing the scheme well enough. Before spring camp this season, Albin moved Edmond to tight end.
The stay at tight end was brief, for as strong as he was, Edmond said his short arms prevented him from truly excelling at the position.
After three seasons away from the position, the 5-foot-11-inch, 240-pound Edmond returned to the position he was successful with in high school.
Albin said that the junior had the entire playbook down in four days, and despite struggling 10 days into the position change, he’s ironed everything out.
“Tim’s a talented young man,” Albin said. “I can literally say that he’s made improvements every practice.”
Edmond joins a deep backfield that features redshirt seniors Beau Blankenship and Ryan Boykin, along with sophomore Daz’mond Patterson.
Finding carries for Edmond might be difficult for Albin, but he’s confident the running back could do the job if called upon.
“Right now, he’d be the fourth guy,” Albin said. “But I’m not scared to put any of the four guys into the game. … Tim’s strength is going to be the power running game. He’s a big, physical guy."
“He’s strong. Strong like a bull. The guys from the secondary are going to be nervous tackling a guy like that.”
With that deep stable of running backs, he’s found that there’s a “sense of family” among the players, with each of the three players above him on the depth chart devoting time to help him transition back to the position.
“Beau has been a big brother to me,” Edmond said. “When I told him I was going to be a running back, he took the time off when he could’ve been asleep, and we came in here in the morning and watched a little bit of tape.”
Meanwhile, Patterson helped show Edmond the ropes in running back drills while Boykin provided an example of the player the junior wants to be.
“Just looking at Boykin period, his physicality, you want to be just like that,” Edmond said. “I’m big just like him, but at the same time he’s got the power. So when I get in there, I’ve just got to give them that power. Just let myself be heard.”
ch203310@ohiou.edu
