COLUMBUS, Ohio — Mitch Rossi knows how developmental the tight end position is.
The converted running back and middle linebacker had to go through it himself, learning where to line up, what to do pre-snap, what to do with your hands and your feet.
As he learned the position at the college level with Jeremy Ruckert, he came up with an idea that would change his approach to the position moving forward. Once you learn everything and can anticipate things before they happen, he says you can cut loose and play more freely.
“We just came up with a motto to 'swing,'” Rossi said. “If I’m going to miss or if I’m going to lose a block, I’m going to lose it going 100 miles an hour rather than being hesitant.”
To Rossi, that’s Cade Stover exemplified.
But to Stover, that’s just a linebacker playing offense.
“You’re just trying to maul people, really. Really just flat out, putting him on his back,” Stover said. "Just like in a street fight, you are trying to put whoever is in front of you on his back.
"In my mind, that’s the only way you can play this game.”
That’s how the redshirt junior has always played, no matter where he’s put on the field. He’s always been a defensive player with a defensive mentality. It’s just what he does.
But that doesn’t mean he plays defense.
That’s where the main learning curve came for Stover when he switched to tight end, a position he had never tried before. He needed to find a way to hone that energy and passion, that freedom he found in the middle of each defense he played in, and use it on the other side of the ball.
It’s freedom he showed playing next to Tommy Eichenberg at linebacker against Utah in the Rose Bowl.
“I mean, really, at that point, the chains got taken off of me,” Stover said. “There was no, ‘Let me go.’ It was just ‘Cade, hold the edge and go get the damn ball.’”
Stover’s always been team-first.
Coming in as an outside linebacker, he moved to defensive end when the Buckeyes needed him to, making the move to tight end when the Buckeyes needed him to, and back to linebacker for a short stint when the Buckeyes needed him to.
When the time came for Stover to choose a path, it was his choice, finding the position that helps the team best, what protects him most long term and where he fits in best to bring that defensive mentality and tenacity to the field.
There was some persuasion, sure, but Stover said he saw the potential too: the ability to play fast, strong and loose, using the speed and strength accumulated through countless workouts with strength coach Mickey Marotti so that when he tackles, just like when he misses a tackle at linebacker or defensive end, he doesn’t fall.
This is what Stover wants to bring to the tight end room: heads knocking, helmets bashing, energy flying all over the place.
“I don’t think I have ever seen a tight end bring that on that side of the ball,” Stover said. “So in my mind, if I can bring out that side of the ball, it’s going to separate when I do try and leave this place, where I need to go and what’s going to take me to get there.”
Ohio State offensive coordinator and tight ends coach Kevin Wilson never made it a secret that he wanted Stover back in his room.
To him, the redshirt junior rounded out that “perfect-world” scenario for his room: if opponents go big, the Buckeyes spread out their tight ends with players who can get open. If they go small, the Buckeyes use their bigger bodies and control the line of scrimmage.
“To me, the tight end unit is like a basketball unit. It would be nice if they were all 6-5, 6-6 and 260 or 70 and ran a 4.4. But they are not. Typically some guys block better, some guys run routes better,” Wilson said. “But when those guys get going and you put them on the field and you can move those parts around and you can take advantage of matchups, that’s what we’re looking for, whether it be a blocking matchup or a route matchup.”
For now, Stover is no longer the “human yo-yo.”
He has a permanent home, a place to put into practice his permanent goal, one that a former Ohio State defensive end helped instill in him when he was a freshman.
“I looked at Jonathan Cooper. When I came here as a freshman, that was the one guy I have ever played with that I’ve been like ‘I want to be like you. I want to act like you, I want to be like you,’” Stover said.
“The position I’m in now, I mean, I’m his age when I was a freshman, so I want those younger kids to see that’s how the game needs to be played. It’s infectious. So if I can really emulate what he was and how he acted toward everybody else and the way he played the game, the same thing’s going to happen to those young kids.”
At the same age of Cooper when he made his biggest impact, Stover's goal is now to infiltrate his tight end room with that tenacious, malicious and free approach: a linebacker playing offense.
He wants to continue the message Ruckert and Rossi established before he came.
Stover aims to continue that motto: just swing.
