Ryan Day, Ohio State Will Take the Good and the Bad With Legend Bey

Legend Bey already looks like a must-watch player for Ohio State. He is also a true freshman. He is 18 years old.

Young players make mistakes. Bey made two of them as a kick returner in Ohio State’s 56-3 season-opening win over Ball State.

Twice, special teams coordinator Robbie Disher waved him off a kick that landed in the end zone. Twice, Bey ignored the signal and brought the ball out. Brandon Inniss was waving him off as well. Ryan Day was not happy on the sideline.

Those two plays were the main negatives on an easy afternoon in Columbus. They should not erase what else Bey did once Ohio State put the ball in his hands on offense.

The debut, play by play

Bey touched the ball 10 times in his first game as a Buckeye.

Two of those touches were the kick returns. Together they went for 26 yards, with a long of 16. Both times he was stopped inside the 20 after leaving the end zone instead of taking the touchback.

The other eight touches produced 74 yards from scrimmage and a highlight touchdown. Officially, that split was six carries for 37 yards and two catches for 37 yards. The score came in the fourth quarter on a short pass from backup quarterback Luke Fahey. Bey made multiple Ball State defenders miss, reversed field, and took it 25 yards to the house.

Ohio State was already up big. The play still told you why the staff wanted him on the field in Week 1.

Why Day trusted him with the opening kickoff

This was not a surprise assignment. Days before the opener, Day named Bey as Ohio State’s kick returner.

“If things go the way that they’ve gone and the way we expect them to throughout the week, Legend Bey will take the first kickoff back,” Day said.

The message before the game was simple: keep the football first, then be explosive.

“Right now, we trust that he’s gonna go in the game and take care of the football for us and give an opportunity to be explosive,” Day said. “But the number one job is to make sure at the end of the play, we have the football.”

Bey did keep the ball. He did not keep the rules. Day’s postgame review was blunt.

“The kickoff returns were a disaster, so we gotta get that fixed,” Day said, via Chase Brown of Eleven Warriors.

Then came the other half of the evaluation.

“You can see the talent.”

Day also said the second return was the more disappointing one because the same mistake happened again. He added that Bey’s attitude when he is corrected has been good, and that it is now the freshman’s job to keep getting better.

That is the whole story in two sentences. The returns were a disaster. The talent is obvious.

Who Legend Bey is, and why the hype started early

Bey is listed at 5-foot-10, 195 pounds. He is a running back from North Forney High School in Forney, Texas. In high school he was a quarterback who wrecked games with his legs.

As a junior he rushed for 1,912 yards and 28 touchdowns. As a senior he passed for 1,341 yards and 15 touchdowns and ran for 1,626 yards and 23 touchdowns. Over his career he accounted for more than 4,000 rushing yards, 3,500 passing yards and 94 total touchdowns. He also ran 10.23 in the 100 meters as a Texas 6A regional qualifier.

Ohio State recruited him as an athlete. 247Sports had him as a four-star and one of the top athletes in the 2026 class. Tennessee and Ohio State both chased him. Bey committed to the Vols, flipped to the Buckeyes, signed with Tennessee, asked for a release, and eventually landed in Columbus.

That recruiting path was messy. The physical profile was not. Day compared him in the winter to a “poor man’s Tyreek Hill” and talked about five- and six-touchdown high school tapes. Running backs coach Carlos Locklyn said watching him run “looks like art.” Jeremiah Smith went further in August and said Bey would win a Heisman or at least be a finalist before he is done at Ohio State.

That is a heavy projection after one college game. It is also why nobody in the building acted shocked when Bey created a touchdown out of a short throw against Ball State.

The freshman year has already had a learning curve

Bey’s first months in Columbus were not smooth off the field either.

He had a number change in the spring for disciplinary reasons, missed the end of spring with a hamstring injury, and was suspended for the first two practices of fall camp after a team-rules violation. Day later said there had been an incident, that Bey controlled the response after that, and that the response had been better. He was back on the field for the third practice of camp.

Day has also been clear that the position change is real work. Bey was a high school quarterback. Ohio State is asking him to play running back, take handoffs, pass-protect, and now return kicks.

“Just because he was a quarterback before, and there’s a lot of things that come with playing running back that are a lot different than certainly being a quarterback,” Day said.

The Ball State tape was that lesson in public. Instinct said bring it out. The coaching staff said stay in. Instinct won twice. Then, when the offense let him create, the same instinct produced a touchdown.

Where he fits behind Bo Jackson

Ohio State does not need Bey to be the feature back in September. Bo Jackson is the lead back. Florida transfer Ja’Kobi Jackson also scored from distance against Ball State. Both Jacksons had 83 rushing yards in the opener. Bo’s 65-yard touchdown and Ja’Kobi’s 49-yard score were the explosive runs that flipped the ground game after a quiet first half.

Bey is further down the running back list. That is why Day used him on kickoffs first. It is also why his eight offensive touches still mattered. He finished second on the team in all-purpose production if you count everything, and he scored.

Devin McCuin, another new face in the skill group, saw the same thing.

“That dude’s crazy, man,” McCuin said. “He’s electric. He’s a Texas kid, too. I’m so proud of him and his growth here. He’s going to be a great player.”

Ohio State named Brandon Inniss, Phillip Bell and McCuin as the punt returners. Bey’s job on special teams is kickoffs. That job will get tighter after Week 1. The offensive role can still grow if he keeps creating yards after contact and after the catch.

Why Ohio State will live with the mistakes

With a lot of young players, Day would use the bench to make a point. The early read after Ball State is that this freshman is not getting buried.

Do not expect Ohio State to keep Bey off the field for long, if at all. The staff will clean up the kick-return rules. It will keep looking for ways to get him the ball because the talent showed up as clearly as the mistakes did.

That is the trade Ohio State is making with Legend Bey. The good and the bad can show up in the same game. An 18-year-old from Forney is going to learn in real time. As long as the explosive plays keep coming, Day is telling you the Buckeyes will take both.