If you had to pick the player on Ohio State’s defense that is getting more playing time than anyone expected entering the season, the clear choice would be true freshman defensive tackle John Simon.

Most defensive tackles redshirt at OSU, but the coaching staff has been extremely impressed with the 6-foot-3, 285-pound Simon. He’s not going to take a starting job away from Dexter Larimore or Doug Worthington, but he’s getting a lot of action as OSU’s No. 3 or No. 4 DT (he is playing just as much as fifth-year senior Todd Denlinger).

“John Simon is a good player,” OSU head coach Jim Tressel said on Tuesday. “He’s an active guy, strong guy, first one into the meeting room and first guy into the weight room. He’s going to be a good football player – he really enjoys it.

“You can tell the guys that love it. You see the Homan brothers (Ross and Adam) in the weight room, you see Simon in the weight room, (Austin) Spitler, and you’ve got to throw those guys out. John Simon loves it.”

But did Tressel see this coming so early? Almost all of the defensive tackles under his watch have redshirted for the Buckeyes.

“We thought he was a good player,” Tressel said. “But you never know how a guy is going to do and that’s the beauty of getting them in here and getting them comfortable in the summertime and letting them train with the other guys. You could tell by his training that he was serious. And then of course, ‘Well, let’s see how he plays football.’ You could tell right away that he loves the game and John is going to be a good football player.”

Ross Homan thinks that Simon is going to be an excellent player before it’s all said and done. Homan usually offers dry comments to the media, but he had some entertaining things to say about Simon when prompted.

“John, first and foremost, is a huge meatball,” Homan said. “He will live and die in the weight room. It was Friday night and we were in Cleveland getting ready to play football and me and Spit were walking back to our hotel room and John asked me and Spit, ‘Hey, where’s the fitness room at?’ And me and Spit looked and him and I said, ‘You must be crazy. Night before a game, you can’t be working out.’ Then Spit said, ‘Just go to your room and chill out and relax.’ And that’s what he did – he took our advice.

“But John is an unbelievable hard worker. He is a quiet kid that hardly talks and he loves football. He’s always in the weight room, always in the film room and he’ always asking questions about football. He wants to get better and he’s going to be a great, great football player for us.”

Simon just needs to improve on his weak bench press and he might turn out to be OK for the Buckeyes. (I’ll be here all week.)

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