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CB Damon Arnette (2nd Team All B1G)



Nothing But Positives From Jeff Hafley When It Comes To Damon Arnette

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Cornerback can be a thankless position. When they make a good play, they’re just doing something they’re supposed to be doing. When they give up a big play or get a flag thrown on them, however, there is no brighter spotlight in football. And that spotlight can burn an indelible mark on some players.

As a redshirt sophomore starting cornerback in 2017, Damon Arnette had a long line of starting Buckeye cornerbacks to live up to. The season began in a rough way for the OSU pass defense, with 806 yards passing allowed in the first two games.

Ohio State’s pass defense would only allow four more games of 200 yards passing that season, but some reputational damage had already occurred to cornerbacks Damon Arnette and Kendall Sheffield. Last year, their play improved, but the stigma was impossible to shake. And there were a couple of gaffes that came at the wrong time. For instance, of Arnette’s five penalties last season (which tied for third-most in the OSU secondary), two came against Michigan. And his inability to properly contain Maryland running back Anthony McFarland on one particular 80-yard run was impossible to ignore.

But that’s life on an island. Every decision has heavy consequences.

Following the season, Sheffield opted to turn pro a year early, but Arnette surprised some people by coming back for his fifth year.

This offseason, Arnette was greeted by his third different position coach in three years and began the process of learning his third different defense as a Buckeye.

About halfway through spring, new secondary coach Jeff Hafley was asked about what he had seen from Arnette, given his “ups and downs.” Hafley replied at the time that he had seen no downs.

Last week, Hafley met with the media for the first time since that day and reiterated his position on Arnette and how well he has done so far.

“It is hard to see a change because I was never around him,” he said. “I watched his film. I studied his film as I was getting ready to take the job and I saw a very talented player. He plays hard and has tremendous ability. Can cover, tough, physical, and then I saw the same things on the field. He’s a guy that loves football and a guy who works hard, a guy who gave it his all every single day, a guy who actually seemed like he enjoyed being out there. He played with confidence and has a ton of ability.”

Entire article: https://theozone.net/2019/06/positives-damon-arnette-jeff-hafley/
 
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Ranking Ohio State’s Playmakers on Defense: No. 7 — Damon Arnette

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The No. 7 player on this list is now in his third year of starting at cornerback for the Buckeyes, but this will be the first year that he isn’t rotating with two other starters.

No. 7 — Damon Arnette, Fifth-Year Senior Cornerback
Five years ago today, Damon Arnette committed to South Carolina.

A 3-star prospect, Arnette was still looking around leading up to the 2015 signing day. That January, he took official visits to Michigan, South Carolina, and then Ohio State.

The OSU visit took place the weekend before signing day. Shortly after his visit, he announced his decommitment from South Carolina and committed to Ohio State. Two days later he signed his letter of intent.

Arnette arrived with a leg injury and redshirted as a true freshman. Kerry Coombs, who was the cornerbacks coach at the time, was hoping that Arnette could turn a planned 3-man rotation at cornerback in 2016 into a 4-man rotation. That didn’t happen, but in 2017 Arnette stepped into the rotation and he remains there to this day.

Arnette has four interceptions in his career, with two of those coming in 2017. He finished with one pick last year and broke up six other passes. The interception return last season only went for one yard, but came in the Big Ten Championship Game against Northwestern.

Entire article: https://theozone.net/2019/07/ohio-state-playmakers-damon-arnette-2/
 
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DAMON ARNETTE'S GROWTH OFF THE FIELD ENABLING HIM TO EMERGE AS A LEADER ON THE FIELD FOR OHIO STATE
Dan Hope on August 5, 2019 at 8:35 am @dan_hope
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Damon Arnette hasn’t always lived up to his potential in his first four years at Ohio State, and he doesn’t hesitate to admit that now.

While Arnette has seen regular playing time in Ohio State’s secondary for each of the last three years, including the past two seasons as a starting cornerback, he’s had his share of struggles on the field. He hasn’t always had the best reputation off the field, either.

As Arnette looks back on his first four years as a Buckeye, he believes the way he lived his life off the field affected the way he played on the field.

“I feel like a lot of dudes, they just mature faster than others, and I feel like with me, I’ve always just been an on-edge type of person,” Arnette said Friday following Ohio State’s first practice of preseason camp. “I just realized that playing with fire, you will get burnt a lot of different ways, it just ain’t worth it. And a part of learning from that stuff is going through certain things and just learning from those mistakes.”

In the past, Arnette said, he was at times more focused on going out and doing things he shouldn’t have been doing off the field than on being the best he could be as a football player. But now that he is entering his final season as a Buckeye, Arnette says he is more focused than he’s ever been on taking care of business in every aspect of his life.

Away from the Woody Hayes Athletic Center, Arnette has become more inclined to stay at home watching Netflix or chatting with his girlfriend on FaceTime than to go out late at night. He’s spent more time focusing on his academics; as a result, Arnette graduated from Ohio State with his degree in communications on Sunday.

On the football field and at the facility, Arnette has become a player his coaches trust and his teammates look up to as a leader.

“If I woke up today and just met him and no one ever told me anything about him, I would think you were crazy if you told me there were issues with him,” first-year secondary coach and co-defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley said when asked about Arnette this summer. “He has done everything that we have asked him to do. I think he had a really good spring … I think he has a chance to have a really good year. He’s made of the right stuff. He’s tough. He loves football. He might like football more than most people I have ever been around.”

RELATED Ohio State Counting on Damon Arnette for Key Role As Experienced Starter on Revamped Defense

As Arnette first told Eleven Warriors in February, he originally planned on leaving Ohio State after last season and entering the 2019 NFL draft. But after a call from Pro Football Hall of Fame wide receiver and Ohio State great Cris Carter – who Arnette has known since he was a kid – and a meeting with Hafley a couple days later, Arnette decided it was in his best interest to stay at Ohio State for his fifth-year senior season.

Carter told Arnette bluntly that he was “no All-American,” and Arnette said those words “cut deep.” So when Arnette made the decision to remain at Ohio State for one more year, he also made a vow to himself to make the most of it.

“Having the thoughts of leaving, the question was, was I the best player I know I can be? Did I leave everything out there? And do I regret anything? And I couldn’t check all of those boxes,” Arnette said Friday. “So then I was like, ‘All right, can you live with that?’ And then I realized like, ‘Nah, I can’t.’ I feel like I’m not doing Buckeye Nation and just my teammates a service if I had left on the note I would have left last year.”

Arnette’s play at Ohio State hasn’t always been great, and he’s drawn his share of criticism from fans as a result. But he’s confident his last season at Ohio State will be his best, and his teammates are too.

Multiple Ohio State defenders, including fellow defensive backs Jordan Fuller and Shaun Wade, have named Arnette as one of the Buckeyes’ top leaders this offseason. Jeff Okudah, who is set to start opposite Arnette this season, has likewise seen a new level of focus in Arnette.

“I see someone that’s just fired up,” Okudah said of Arnette. “He’s ready to go. He hears everything that people say about him, and when people just poke at you, poke at you, poke at you, I told him that he has a chance to look at all his critics in the eyes and tell everyone, put some respect on his name. So I think that’s what he’s set out to do, and I have the most faith that he can accomplish that.”

“IF I WOKE UP TODAY AND JUST MET HIM AND NO ONE EVER TOLD ME ANYTHING ABOUT HIM, I WOULD THINK YOU WERE CRAZY IF YOU TOLD ME THERE WERE ISSUES WITH HIM.”– OHIO STATE SECONDARY COACH JEFF HAFLEY ON DAMON ARNETTE

Arnette believes that having the opportunity to learn from Hafley, who spent the past seven years coaching in the NFL before joining Ohio State’s coaching staff in January, is also setting him up for success this season.

“The technique that he teaches is what a lot of us do naturally, and I would have hated myself if I would have left and saw everybody else doing what we’re doing now and I was somewhere else,” Arnette said.

Arnette’s career at Ohio State has been far from perfect, but he’s using the lessons he’s learned from his past mistakes to not only be a better player on the field and a better person off the field himself, but also to set an example for his younger teammates and help them when they might run into trouble themselves.

“I try to use my experiences to help a lot of the young guys, now that I may see just going through some of the certain things that I went through, and I feel like just maybe the message should come off a little bit differently maybe than I received it,” Arnette said. “So I try to just use what I know I rejected and what I accepted to help others.”

In addition, Arnette has also made an effort to help younger people by making multiple visits this offseason to local middle schools, where his status as an Ohio State football player makes him someone that kids might look up to.

Arnette said his message to those kids was simple: “Don’t be young and dumb.”

“Just seeing how I can use my platform to really help somebody younger than me, in ages of my life when I knew I was getting in the most trouble, it just really felt good to just try to help somebody else,” Arnette said. “What are they, 12-13 years old? They’ve only been 12-13 years old one time, so when an old head says something to them, just consider what they’re saying because they’ve been there before, and they don’t know what it’s like to be 20 years old with a kid or 20 years old paying bills and stuff like that, so that’s important, just being able to take advice.”


https://www.elevenwarriors.com/ohio...39qWnxiEqtCuT7bpr7v1t5jerUqD1TldDxsCDbf70C69U
 
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Chiming in because I already see people (on other sites) complaining that Shaun Wade isn't solely going to be CB2 because he and Arnette will switch roles on a situational basis. To me that's a good thing, because adaptability is key to defending elite offenses and can create additional confusion for QBs pre-snap.

Arnette has been inconsistent in his career, and relies too much on his physicality in coverage, but I've never thought of him as a bad CB. People just need to accept that he's not Lattimore or Ward, but has experience and is benefitting from better coaching. You could do a lot worse than having him as your situational 2nd/3rd cover guy.
 
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I’ve been down on this guy his whole career but I’m reserving final judgement. Something tells me this guy could really step up this final year and be one of the feel good stories of the season. You can never have too much DB depth.

*fingers crossed
 
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https://theathletic.com/1153410/201...hat-brought-damon-arnette-back-to-ohio-state/

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Here’s what Arnette knew: Turning pro meant not having to come back to a situation that wasn’t all that enjoyable last year. The position coach that helped recruit Arnette to Ohio State, Kerry Coombs, left in January 2018 to join the Tennessee Titans staff in a move that was surprising to many inside the Woody. Coombs was a media favorite for his energetic news conferences and his shoot-it-straight comments. It went beyond that for his players. Coombs had developed a strong track record of turning out first-round cornerbacks by coaching them up on press-man principles that became the staple of Ohio State’s strong pass defense from 2014-2017. Coombs was a passionate coach who supported his players, and his absence left a void on the staff that never seemed to get filled last year.

“I didn’t always get along with the coaches last year,” Arnette said. “I had my fair share of issues. When Kerry Coombs left, he was somebody who always had my back no matter what I went through. After he left, I didn’t have that love for any other coaches in the building like that. It just wasn’t there, and I checked out early. I just didn’t want to play for them no more.”

Perhaps that had a hand in Arnette’s up-and-down play last year. Among OSU’s top-four coverage guys — Jeffrey Okudah, Shaun Wade, Sheffield and Arnette — Arnette had the highest adjusted catch rate allowed, 80 percent, according to Sports Info Solutions. That was actually an improvement from 2017, and Arnette has only surrendered two touchdown throws in his career, but he’s fielded his share of criticism on social media, including a direct message from one follower who told him he should go back to high school and pick a different sport.

Arnette has the kind of personality that draws people to him, but when he’s in a bad way, that can have a negative impact on those around him. He’s usually upbeat, but at a certain point constantly getting told how bad you are can weigh on you.

“(Strength) coach Mick (Marotti) said I have a charismatic personality, and I can either lead people up or down,” Arnette said. “I never really looked around and saw that. I feel like last year I was selfish with that and didn’t use that opportunity to lead people the right way. I really just did what I wanted to do, and then so did they.”

Arnette also said he was too interested in living the college party lifestyle, and not focused enough on football or academics. If he was going to make the jump to the NFL after last year, he would be hardly leaving Ohio State in the best standing.

“Having the thoughts of leaving, the questions were: Was I the best player I know I can be? Did I leave everything out there? Do I regret anything? I couldn’t check all of those boxes,” Arnette said. “Then I was like, can you live with that? And I realized, no I can’t.”

Cont'd ...
 
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