COLUMBUS — On a day reserved for celebration, an eerie pall remains cast over the Ohio State football program.
Senior day ceremonies will proceed without one of the 24 players set to be honored before today’s game against Michigan.
On Friday, the search continued for Kosta Karageorge, the senior defensive lineman who was reportedly last seen leaving his campus-area apartment in distress early Wednesday morning.
Karageorge, a former Buckeyes wrestler and a first-year walk on, missed practice on Wednesday and the annual tradition known as Senior Tackle on Thursday. A search party of family and friends was called Friday to comb Grandview, where he set out by foot in all-black sweats at about 2 a.m. Wednesday.
“Our thoughts continue to be with the family of Kosta Karageorge, and we pray that he is safe and that he is found soon,” Ohio State coach Urban Meyer said in a statement on Friday.
“He is a young man who joined the football team in August and was a hard worker on the field and pleasant off the field. He has been an important player in practice for us, right up until the time he was reported missing. If anyone knows anything about his whereabouts, please help.”
According to a missing-person report obtained by the Columbus Dispatch, Karageorge’s family expressed concern he became disoriented and wandered off. His mother, Susan, noted his history of sports-related concussions.
“I am sorry if I am an embarrassment, but these concussions have my head all [messed] up,” Karageorge texted his mother at 1:30 a.m. Wednesday.
The reserve lineman played in one game this season — at Penn State last month. Team physician Jim Borchers said he could not comment on Karageorge’s medical past.
“We are confident in our medical procedures and policies to return athletes to participation following injury or illness,” he said.
It is a scenario with little precedent, leaving Ohio State in search of the right balance between showing their concern for a missing teammate and moving forward.
This regular-season finale otherwise represents a day to honor one of the most accomplished classes in program history — and one notable because many of them arrived just in time for the bottom to fall out in 2011.
The same players who as freshmen endured the Buckeyes’ 6-7 nosedive in a scandal-marred 2011 season went on to win 34 of 37 games in the next three seasons.
Today a senior class that includes defensive lineman Michael Bennett, linebacker Curtis Grant, cornerback Doran Grant, receivers Evan Spencer and Devin Smith, tight end Jeff Heuerman, and right tackle Darryl Baldwin look to complete a Big Ten-record third straight perfect season in conference play.
What will they be thinking as they tear out of the Ohio Stadium tunnel one last time?
“Probably that I just loved it so much that I didn’t want it to end,” said Heuerman, a native of Naples, Fla. “I love college, man. I love Ohio State. All good things come to an end, and it’s time move on to the next chapter. But it’s gone by so fast.
“It seems just like yesterday I showed for the first day of class, and Braxton [Miller] and I were so cold we called [staffer] Greg Gillum to drive us to class because we were like, ‘We ain’t walking to class in this.’ I have no regrets. I loved every minute of it.”
Contact David Briggs at: dbriggs@theblade.com, 419-724-6084 or on Twitter @DBriggsBlade.
First Published November 29, 2014, 5:25 a.m.
