Ohio State running back TreVeyon Henderson will undergo surgery on his left foot on Friday and won’t play in the upcoming College Football Playoff, he told The Columbus Dispatch on Tuesday.
Henderson, the No. 4 Buckeyes’ second-leading rusher with 571 yards and six touchdowns, missed three of the past four games because of the injury.
Henderson told the Dispatch on Tuesday that he injured his foot in a 77-21 victory against Toledo on Sept. 17 and had been battling the injury ever since. He previously tweeted that he was playing with a fracture and torn ligament in his foot.
As much as I wanted to finish out the season with my brothers, I know god have bigger and better plans for me! Its always light at the end of the tunnel, be back better than ever.. 🙏🏽 #KeepGoing
— TreVeyon Henderson (@TreVeyonH4) December 13, 2022
Ohio State plays No. 1 Georgia in a CFP semifinal at the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on New Year’s Eve (8 p.m. ET/ESPN, ESPN App).
“I have to have surgery on my foot because it’s gotten that bad since the third game,” Henderson told the Dispatch. “I’ve just been making it worse going back out there.”
Henderson, a sophomore from Hopewell, Virginia, was one of the top freshmen in the FBS in 2021, running for 1,248 yards with 15 rushing touchdowns.
“It’s real painful,” Henderson said. “I barely practiced all season. I went through a bunch of different cleats to try to push through it, but the pain was crazy. I really don’t know how I was able to push through it in the games I did play in. I just tried to do the best I can.”
Junior Miyan Williams leads the Buckeyes with 817 rushing yards and 13 touchdowns. He has been hampered by a right leg injury lately as well.
Henderson is the second high-profile Buckeyes player to announce that he’ll miss the CFP. Last week, receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who broke the Big Ten record with 1,066 receiving yards in 2021 but missed most of this season with a lingering hamstring injury, announced that he wouldn’t play against Georgia and would start preparing for the NFL draft.
“I want to be out there competing with my brothers more than anything,” Smith-Njigba told ESPN. “The decision to turn pro was made after I was unable to come back on multiple occasions during the season and the doctors determined I would be unable to participate in the playoffs.”