By JOHN KAMPF (MorningJournal.com) –COLUMBUS — Patience is supposedly a virtue.

Good luck telling that to a freshman football player who is used to being “The Man” on the football field.

Brian Rolle and Ross Homan know all about it. The pair of returning starting linebackers for Ohio State remember coming to Columbus and being told by the likes of James Laurinaitis and Marcus Freeman to be patient, listen and learn.

It wasn’t easy for them. And now that they are veterans and saying the same thing to a current group of OSU youngsters, Rolle and Homan understand if they get a roll of the eye or two from their new teammates.

“You tell them to keep learning, that’s the main thing,” Homan said. “Keep competing, it’ll come to you. No one’s perfect.

“They’re coming from a high school where they are Mr. Everything to a program like this.”

Rolle agreed. He said he remembers the tutelage of Laurinaitis and Freeman, and also shared a story about a conversation he had with redshirt freshman Dorian Bell on Friday on the virtues of staying patient.

“Guys come out of high school rated high,” Rolle said. “They expect to come in and jump into a role. What I learned from Laurinaitis and Freeman is (if) you wait your turn, everybody is going to know your name. That’s how it is here. But you’ve got to wait and do the small things.

“Everybody wants to come in and jump into the play book. But you’ve got to do the small things. That’s how you get on the field.”

Co-defensive coordinator Luke Fickell said that when he is recruiting players, he expresses the importance of hard work and persistence.

“I tell them, ‘It’s not where you start, it’s where you finish,’” Fickell prescription drugs online without prescription said. “That’s hard for young guys and that’s hard for guys who are in the recruiting process. It’s hard for freshmen. I just try to talk about it from the get-go of camp. It’s not where you start, it’s where you finish.”

Coachin’em up

Members of the Ohio State coaching traveled around the nation earlier this spring to pick up tips and possibly share tips at different programs such as Oklahoma, Alabama and LSU.

Homan said he has noticed a few different tweaks to the defensive system, possibly things his coaches picked up while at the other clinics. But Fickell said the Buckeyes are far from reinventing the wheel in regard to changes…..

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