It was during an offseason, Josh Proctor remembers, when he was feeling sick and was refusing to pick up his phone even for his Ohio State coaches.
When Matt Barnes couldn’t get ahold of him, he found Proctor 's address, came to his young safety’s house and sat with him just to check in on things. That provided a turning point for how Proctor viewed Barnes.
“He just sat there and talked to me to make sure I was OK,” Proctor said. “I think after that, our relationship really grew.”
For sophomore Marcus Hooker, the Buckeyes’ other up-and-coming but inexperienced safety, he can’t remember the exact day when he began to really take notice of Barnes’ demeanor, but he knows it happened pretty quickly during his freshman year.