COLUMBUS — The moments in the winter and spring when Lathan Ransom could only watch his Ohio State teammates go through conditioning, mat drills and practice were the hardest. It’s easy to imagine anyone getting down on themselves at various points along the road back from healing a broken leg. For Ransom, those days were the low points.

The junior safety from Arizona let those difficult times get to him for a bit. He confided in teammates who have been through similar injury setbacks, and took guidance from the team athletic training staff, coaches and family to steady himself out. Then he stopped focusing on what he couldn’t do, and searched for what he could do to make sure he was ready once fully healed.

“After I cleared my head and really understood the position I was in, I just started focusing on learning the playbook,” Ransom said this week. “I was doing everything I could do because I obviously couldn’t be out there with my teammates. I encouraged them as much as I could. When (playing) got taken away from me, it gave me a bigger appreciation for it. I don’t want to leave the field now.”

It sounds like Ransom is making the most of every moment he’s had on the field this month. If you were to make a list of the players who have been getting the most praise during camp, Ransom would be near the top.

“I feel like a lot of people maybe have forgotten about him,” fourth-year safety Ronnie Hickman said. “Lathan has had one of the best camps I’ve seen since I’ve been in this program.”

Some flashes from Ransom would be noteworthy regardless of the surrounding circumstances. That he’s turning heads a mere seven months removed from breaking his leg in the Rose Bowl makes it all the more impressive.

The last time anyone saw Ransom in a game, he was suffering said injury while covering a kickoff in the second quarter against Utah. He was carted off the field with an air cast on his left leg, and had surgery less than 48 hours later. It looked at the time like the kind of injury that would make being ready for the start of the season, let alone camp, difficult. Instead, Ransom has been 100 percent since the start of camp. He’s been making plays. And he’s put himself in a position where we’re all left wondering what kind of role he can have on the defense this year.

“I had no idea whether we’d have him or not, or what he could do,” new coordinator Jim Knowles said, “but I’m very impressed.”

It remains to be seen how much Knowles will rotate his safeties, or where exactly Ransom is in that pecking order at the moment. But it’s hard to imagine a scenario where he’s not playing an important role this fall. Ransom is thus far the only player to earn "Silver Bullet of the Day” status twice during camp.

“That guy produces,” Hickman said. “Whether that’s punching the ball out, making a big hit, a pass break-up, a pick-six, he does it all.”

He’s doing it with a sense of urgency and a new perspective. Though it seems in the end that Ransom will not have to miss any part of the 2022 season, he still feels like something was taken away from him by not being available during the winter and spring. He’s sought to make up for the lost time by getting in extra work with position coach Perry Eliano. On Monday night, after Ransom attended a fundraising event for one of Ohio State’s NIL collectives at The Blackwell Hotel, he and Eliano were back in the Woody Hayes Athletic Center fine-tuning some things with the season opener less than two weeks away.

That dogged approach to improving was something that stood out to Eliano as he observed Ransom attack his rehab with athletic trainer Adam Stewart and his staff once Ransom was able to walk without the aid of crutches in March.

“The thing that nobody really saw was his work, his rehab every day in the spring and summer,” Eliano said. “We talk a lot about unseen hours and unrequired work. He puts that in every day. It didn’t surprise me that he was ready to go at the start of camp because of all the time he put in when nobody was around. That’s a unique toughness that he has.”

That’s toughness of both the mental and physical variety.

“He can get from Point A to Point B pretty fast,” Eliano said. “He’s violent. He’s physical. He’s full of energy. I like it.”

Ransom has drawn rave reviews for his physicality in camp, for his willingness to stick his nose in against the run and make his presence felt with bone-jarring hits. The moment he really felt like he was back came early in camp, shortly after the pads came on, and Ransom ran the alley to make a stop of running back Evan Pryor in the hole.

Ransom feels like he’s operating from his more natural position of deep safety in Knowles’ defense after spending much of his first two years at Ohio State playing more of a slot corner role.

“I’ve been able to make plays because when I see it, I believe it,” Ransom said.

That’s what Knowles seems to like most about Ransom. He’s got a strong football IQ, something that improved this offseason when all he could do was hone in on the playbook and the intricacies of the game while unable to participate in on-field drills. He’s combined that increased knowledge with some natural instinct and spatial awareness. Now things seem to be clicking for Ransom in a way they hadn’t before.

“I came here to play free safety and this is the first time I’ve had the ability to play one of the deep safeties,” he said. “I was excited for the opportunity to show them what I could do.”

Ransom’s emergence combined with the return of Josh Proctor from injury does create a crowded picture at safety. Knowles and Eliano will look for ways to work in those two along with Hickman, Kourt Williams, Tanner McCalister and Cameron Martinez.

Three of them will start, others may have more situational roles.

Ransom has been pushing for a major role since camp started, but for now seems content with merely being available when that wasn’t a guarantee six months ago, and doing whatever he needs to do to help the defense take a step forward.

“I feel like that’s going to sort itself out,” he said. “Coaches are gonna put the best players on the field. Whoever they decide to play, they earned it. Whatever my role, whatever everyone else’s role is, let’s do that and try to win a national championship.”