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Football
Young Carter Learning His Lessons Early
By Brandon Castel

Sitting at home in Florida watching his Ohio State teammates playing against Oregon in 2010 Rose Bowl, Duron Carter could hardly remember how he had gotten there.

Duron Carter
Photo by Dan Harker

Just five months earlier, the freshman wideout had the world at his fingertips. After a successful high school career at St. Thomas Aquinas in Fort Lauderdale, Carter stepped on to the practice field at Ohio State and almost immediately worked his way into the two-deep rotation at wide receiver.

He had three catches in the season-opener against Navy and two more in week three against Toledo. By week five he had caught his first touchdown as a Buckeye and in week nine he snagged three more balls for a career-high 82 yards.

While things were certainly going well for the college freshman on the field, that success was not carrying over to the classroom.

“I messed up on my own, not focusing and different things,” said Carter, who was ruled academically ineligible for the bowl game.

“It really brings you back down to earth. Playing in the season you get hyped up with the fans, the crowd, and I just didn't stay focused.”

That lack of focus cost Carter one of the biggest games of his career and an opportunity to shine on the big stage. Fortunately for him, it came at the very onset of what appears to be a bright playing future at Ohio State.

“I wouldn't want to be in that situation again,” Carter said.

“I am turning over a new leaf. I wanted to come back to Ohio State the whole time. They have had a lot of people mess up their first year and I was confident in coach (Jim) Tressel, he came to me and I talked to him and he is helping me out.”

Duron Carter hauls in the football near the endzone against Indiana.
Photo by Jim Davidson

His father, Cris Carter, is a potential NFL Hall of Famer and a Buckeye legend, but he is all too familiar with being ruled ineligible. After catching 69 passes for 1,127 yards as a junior, the elder Carter was forced to miss his entire senior season for secretly signing with an agent.

It’s a life lesson that has allowed him to speak wisdom into his son’s situation.

“He taught me that I can't really look back,” Carter said of his father, who set a Rose Bowl record with nine catches for 172 yards as a freshman during the 1984 season.

“I messed up, he messed up. We were sort of in the same situation and he said he just had to keep on moving on and not look back. That is in the past, we are in the future, and I am glad to be a Buckeye.”

Although he is taking classes at Ohio State during winter quarter, Carter isn’t all the way back just yet. Because he is academically ineligible for the quarter, Carter won’t officially be allowed to rejoin his teammates in the weight room and on the practice field until the start of spring quarter.

“I can lift, run, everything. I am doing that with Doug Davis,” Carter said of OSU’s strength assistant.

“I can't do that with the team for another two or three weeks when the quarter ends and I am back eligible. When I am back eligible I am back.”

Once he is back wearing the Scarlet and Gray, Carter should compete for the No. 3 receiver job this spring. The Buckeyes lost senior Ray Small – who was also ineligible for the Rose Bowl – as well as sophomore Lamaar Thomas – who transferred to New Mexico – this off-season. That means Carter will likely compete directly with senior Taurian Washington for the third receiver spot behind DeVier Posey and Dane Sanzenbacher, but he could also see competition from classmates Chris Fields and James Jackson.

“It is all up the coaches. I am going to play to the best of my ability and hopefully I can be in there, but I know if there is somebody in front of me they could do the job just as good as me,” a humbled Carter said.

“Hopefully I can come back and be a better player.”

He will only be a sophomore this year, but already Carter is starting to feel like an upper classman. His experience over the last four months has been an eye-opening one, and one that Carter says will help prepare him for the other trials that a man faces in his life.

“I feel the same, I just feel older. I feel a lot more experienced,” he said.

“In life you go through a lot of things, so I’m glad I went through an experience like that so next time I know how to prepare for it.”

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