Inside Ohio State football's first spring practice of 2026

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1:27Welcome back to Book I Talk. I'm Stephen Means. That's to find Christlake and that is Andrew Gills. Spring football has finally arrived, which means no more hypothetical conversations for a while. We can take the tangible things we saw in reality and turn those into new hypotheticals. Because what are we without our hypotheticals? What are we Stefan? What are we without our hypotheticals? How could we survive in this sport without hypotheticals? I did think that one of the, I found it funny that one of the first major things to come out of spring practice does spring off a hypothetical that we had in our last position group breakdown. So that's always good. Yeah. So I mean, we can start there. We can start with the fact that Leroy Roker spoke before the team and before practice, which is kind of notable because the last time we saw an Ohio State football practice, there was also safety speaking before practice. That safety is going to be a top 10 draft pick. Do we think Leroy Roker is going to be a top 10 draft pick? Probably not.

2:27Probably not. Right? Even the day was getting asked about, hey, it's kind of crazy. That Caleb Downs is going to be a first round pick, right? It's kind of crazy. Huh? What do we think about the safety battle? Do we think it's a real battle between Terry Moore and, you know, let's, let's start it into this because this is what spring is all about. Something, nothing or everything that Leroy Roker was alongside Jayla McLean and Earl Little and Devon Sanchez and Jermaine Matthews and a world where we think that those other four are pretty much locked into being started for Ohio State in 2026 because that's something nothing or everything. I think it's something. I think it's certainly something because there are spots on this roster where, sure, you could say, you know, spring practice number one, the guys who are coming back to guys who have been around, maybe they kind of lead the way because they understand how thing works or how things work around here, but, you know, with the ones you had, with the ones you had Earl Little, you know, working at Nicholstill and a safety it was, it was

3:27Leroy Roker, not Terry Moore and I think that's notable. So I think it's certainly something and I think like that you, sure, Leroy could have been out there because he's the one who's kind of been there, done that, but also Leroy could also be out there because he's taking the next step and in a safety room where Fahim Delay and thought it was best for him to leave, Leroy Roker thought it was best for him to stay, even though there was an all HTC guy coming in and I think, you know, even part of that too, it's like, it's not like Leroy is a second year guy who's saying, okay, I'll just wait my turn year three is when my opportunity will come like it is year three for him and he's still willing to kind of stick it out, stay here and feel like he could have a big enough role, right? So I think it's something because everything this off season is kind of built toward like, hey, every time we talk about the safety room, we kind of forget about Leroy Roker and he's still here and he's the guy who late and in 2025 season was getting reps over frame to lane in certain situations. He's the guy now who is getting reps over Terry Moore early in the spring. Could we get to late spring and Terry Moore is working with the ones, sure, could we get to fall camp and week one and Terry Moore's a starter, sure, but I think this does show

4:32you that the signs of late in the 2025 season have translated now into the spring where Leroy Roker is doing the necessary things to be trusted with first team reps by this coaching staff. And when you have a guy and Terry Moore who we know is an all ACC caliber player, but we also know has him played since 2024 and it's coming off an ACL injury, which is not an easy thing even in modern technology. It's not always the easiest thing to recover from an injury like that. It's notable. I think it's something. So like the on the field stuff is obviously part of it. And then like you mentioned, it's the first day of spring. Well, Ohio State has X amount of returning starters, who is Ryan Dayg and I have speak to the team on the first day of spring with all these new faces, right? There's there's 50 new guys who are all being introduced to Ohio State football for the first time. And we got to put someone in front of them before that very first practice to kind of set the tone. It's going to be Kenyatta Jackson or Brandon Innis or Jeremiah Smith or Jail McLean, right? Who's Leroy Roker? Like all of us were standing there kind of being like, who is that? Who's that?

5:32Like trying to see the jersey number. We're like, oh, number 10 on defense. Definitely. Leroy Roker. So it's definitely something. I'm not going to say it's everything right because it's, it's early in the spring right, not not much is everything right now, but it's it's flour from nothing at a position where we kind of threw out the hypothetical of you bringing all these transfers, they're not all going to start for you, even the ones you project to start, you know, certain things happen, right? Like we thought last year Bowak had said we'd maybe have a bigger role than he was going to have. We thought Ethan O'Neil was going to be a starter, right? Like if you get these guys, they can beat, but Ohio State also recruits and develops really well. And I think I liked the Leroy Roker arc, too, because it's like, he was a three-star in the composite rankings, right? This isn't, this isn't your typical Ohio State like come in, but like, hey, here's a, here's a five-star four-star who in year three is obviously going to pop. Like this is kind of an archaic in college football terms, like development of a diamond in the rough deal, right? A three-star prospect. You develop like a three-star prospect goes to school and develops and stays and doesn't

6:33leave. And in year three, he's competing for a starting job. It feels good, doesn't it? It feels good to say it. It feels good to see it. That's like you're talking about dinosaur times there, developed here. Who? What? It's the first day of spring practice and he chose Leroy Roker to talk in a world where he has two returning captains on the offensive side. I do think that is a notable thing because they're also looking for a bunch of new leaders all over the place. It can't just be Brandon and Austin Saravell doing all the leading. You know, you need a lot of leaders and they're probably trying to develop the leadership community right now and see your putting guys in positions where they're a little bit more uncomfortable. How often has Leroy Roker been the guy who has the entire roster, entire programs, attention, right? So you just put in guys' positions to get them uncomfortable to see how they thrive in those spots. Gilles, something, nothing, or everything. Leroy Roker. Something. But it sounds like if nothing is zero, something is 50, everything is 100.

7:33Stefan's more on the north side of 50 with that. 75. Yeah. It's something, but I'm more like 20, like I don't care, like I'm sorry, like here's what I would say. Ohio State, I talked about this in our video and I'm going to use the defensive line as an example here. Ohio State had a bunch of returning offensive linemen, right? They went in the portal, they got one guy who we have to ask about this. I didn't see him on the spring practice roster. So he might just be a summer guy. He's not getting it. If you're going to ask about for Sean Washington, he is still a dark mouth. That's right. He is not going to get here until the summer because remember, they still go to school at the Ivy League. They do. You just called dark mouth? No, I said dark mouth. That's not what you said. I said dark. That's not what you said. I can edit it out and say that I said dark with. So it's, well, we'll have to watch the tape. No, I think the reason I said dark mouth is because we were joking about it calling it dark mouth and now it got stuck in my head. The offensive line is veteran, they're old, they're experienced.

8:36The defensive line is old, they're veteran, they're experienced, but the defensive line just has a bunch of new guys and the offensive line doesn't. The offensive line today was Syriveld Montgomery, Hinsman, Gabe Van Sickle, the only, quote, unquote, drama, maybe it right on the offensive line, right tackle, Filipinos, okay. They kept a lot of the dudes there. Defensive line was, and we'll get to this later, the defensive line was all returners. Much as they brought in on the defensive line, Will Smith and Edrick Houston and then Boatkinson and Kenyatta Jackson. So I understand that idea of Leroy Roker broke the team down and Leroy Roker is talking to the team. Like I get it and I think that it's something, but Ohio State also went and got a second team all ACC safety, pulled them back from committing to the NFL draft. And this is a dude who when he showed up at Duke was a running back. And then played safety in 23, played safety in 24, and then in 25 he blew an ACL or he blew

9:37an ACL technically at the end of the 24 seasons. We missed 25. So like this is a dude who wants to play safety and needs to play safety and I think Ohio State is aware of that. So I'm not going to read a ton into that because I don't think Ohio State's like Krishna Allegro was out there with the first team, but I don't think we're going to see a ton of portal guys immediately walking their way onto the starting job. And I think Leroy Roker doing that is big because Fahim DeLane, hey, you know, he was here and everybody thought he was going to be the guy and Leroy Roker was ahead of him. They were playing him more in the cotton bowl. I get it, but it's early and there's a transfer portal player behind him who has played over a thousand career snaps was a decorated all ACC player. Let's wait. I'm not, I'm not really swayed by the Leroy Roker of today. I think it's interesting, but it's not, I'm not going head over heels with it. And I'm not saying Stefan is either, but yes he is. That's what he said. So fun. To be fair, Ethan Yahu, I played a thousand plus snaps when he got here and the guy who

10:41was coming back and going into his third year is the guy who ended up starting a left tackle for Ohio State. I think it's everything. And I'm going to tell you why I think it's everything because it's not everything because I think that he's going to be out Terry Moore to be the starting safety year. It's everything because of what we saw from Ohio State last year when I asked this question. It's third and seven clear passing situation against Texas. What's the back seven look like? Probably have for us, you know, let's say is Peyton Pearson, whoever within, you know, Riley Pettagena, Cristiano Legros there. Okay. Jalen McLean or a little Devon Sanchez, Jermaine Matthews and I mean, not everything we saw on Tuesday suggests that they would trust Leroy Roker more than Cam Kelhoon or Dominic Kelly. That's why it's everything for me. It has, I don't, I think Terry Moore is going to be in the starting safety here, but that third down package we saw last year, that's, I don't think that's like that. Pat Matrice is not throwing that out the playbook for 2026 if he feels like he can go to it. And last year the option was to take a corner and move him in the nick and put Devon Sanchez

11:43outside. And sure, could he do that this year if Dominic Kelly or Cam Calhoun turns into something possibly, but does he have to do that? If he just keeps Jermaine in Devon outside and he brings Earl Littledown and he brings Jalen McLean down to play the Caleb Downs role in that pack because that was the thing. Like Caleb Downs wasn't just like a high safety and that Caleb Downs was wherever. And then you got Terry Moore and you got Leroy Roker back there. So it's everything for me because of the way Ryan Day talked about the defensive backs after practice where he said it's as deep as we've had. He said that about a couple of positions. He said that about a wide receiver. He said that about the defensive backs. He said that about the offensive lineup. But like this is we've never really had this type of depth. And Leroy Roker being with the ones, Gillis is correct. There is an element here of anywhere that there was an option to put a guy who has been in the system here before first that's what they went with. And they couldn't do that at linebacker because Riley Petagion is not practicing this spring

12:45at full go. So there is like whenever you saw any level of a team period, Riley Petagion wasn't out there. So if there were two linebackers out there, it was going to be Peyton Pierce and Christian Allegrio. Allegro. Would that have been true if Riley Petagion was practicing? No, probably Riley Petagion would have been out there first, right? There's probably would have been the same thing at wide receiver, but there's only two returning wide receivers. And Jeremiah Smith and Brandon Innis and like Desi Jones is back with Desi Jones and Philip Bell are not they both for slot receivers. So of course Deva McEwan's out there with Jeremiah Smith and Brandon is with the ones. The offensive line, it was the exact same offensive line starters who started the cotton bowl. Do we all think that the guys who took the field as the starting offensive line in the cotton bowl are going to be the same people who take the field as the starting offensive line on September 5th? Probably not. Right. But could be sure it's an option, which is something I noticed about this team from the Gicknow is it's an option that you could do that. I know Ryan Day said that Austin Cereveld is practicing a tackle, but he also, you know,

13:47the Ryan Day doesn't say anything on accident. He also said he could do guard stuff. The only guy where it was just like tackle and there was not a single other position mentioned was Philip Daniels. And I thought that was interesting because I think we've all been like, why can't Philip Daniels play guard exactly. But I don't know. It sounds if they're going to move one of their starting left starting tackles from last year, it sounds like it's going to be Cereveld and that's fine if it means you're going to eat more on the field. So that's whatever. But yes, guys returning were in front of guys who just got here because it's the first day. Sure. And everybody's trying to figure out what they're doing. If you've never done this before, there's 51 dudes who have never done this. I don't know how I'll stay before. And there's like 28 of those 51 who have never done it anywhere before because that's your freshman. But I do think it's everything that Ryan Day is talking about his defensive back depth. Because now you start to get the ball rolling on your head of like, okay, how many different ways can they deploy this thing? So I don't look at my everything isn't because I think Leroy Roker is going to beat out Terry Moore. But my everything is, can Leroy Roker and Terry Moore be on the field at the same time?

14:49And J. Little McLean and Earl Little and Devon Sanchez and Jermaine Matthews? Who knows? Maybe. Maybe they might rotate. Guys, a different spot. Who knows? But it's just, it was interesting to see that. And it was interesting to hear how Ryan Day talked about that in that first time. The first time we talked to Matt Patricia this spring, which for context is at a date to be determined. Oh, I stayed at spring break next week. So we'll figure that out when we're going to get to talk to, I mean Arthur Smith is going to be interesting too. But like, I think Patricia, I mean, honestly, there's so much new with this defense and like the back end is obviously part of that. Ryan mentioned today, like when you lose Davidson, when you lose Caleb Downs and when you lose Lorenzo styles, like that definitely changes the way that you do things and changes the way that you have to operate. And I just, like, I'm thinking about kind of what we saw today because like, you know, your eyes are kind of darting around and it's like, you wonder how much of it is real and you wonder how much of it is day one of spring ball and it's March 10th and we haven't

15:53even gotten to April yet and blah, blah, blah, like, you know, at this time two years ago, we were looking at each other going, Devon Brown might be better than Will Howard, at least he looks the same. Like, like, think about some of the previous camp battles that we've had conversations about. I just, I'm curious if this is mad scientist, Matt Patricia, he has 18 different packages for 18 different third and seven, if third and seven on the left hash is different from third and seven on the right hash and blah, blah, blah, and he can, is he going to settle into more of a more of a, I guess, solidified role with this defense because Steven, you were mentioning it, like, yeah, like, Lee were a rooker Terry Moore and Jaylen McClancon absolutely playing the same field, but then you've also got Dominic Kelly and Camp Calhoun at corner, right? And you wonder how they factor into that mix, you know, Ryan mentioned the depth and we, I don't think we've seen enough or at all of, like, the freshmen that are so highly touted or, you know, hey, Miles Lockhart's still here, like, like, they're just, they're,

16:57the depth is there, but I wonder if it's just good depth or if it's, let's use it all. I don't know where that's going to fall and, and I don't even think we're going to have an answer tomorrow or is, is you guys listening to this or, or even maybe through the spring? You guys want something else you noticed from first day? Yeah, I mean, I watch the offensive line and defensive line, you know, as I'm one to do, but I'll start with the defensive line because like I said, the offensive line was just kind of what it was. Um, I can go through, I have my notes out of, I can go through and kind of, you know, maybe who was with who? Let me just say, say real quick, we're talking about the offensive line. One of the updates we got from Ryan Day is that Josh Padilla is limited, couldn't, like, it was Syrival Montgomery, Hensman, Van Sickle, Daniels, that doesn't necessarily mean that like, Van Sickle's first team right guard is just that Jack Padilla was not really participating much today. So like, he is part of that too. He didn't mention like for Hensman and Padilla that they can play center guard. And I thought it was interesting that he like kind of dropped those. I wonder if there is an opportunity where Padilla is the center and Hensman is the right

17:59guard instead of vice versa. But that's, that's the context of why gave Van Sickle was the starting right guard. It's, he is obviously competing for that spot, but the competition was not fully there today. Yeah. Yeah. So that point, like, because before you get to that, it's like defensive line. I get it. It's spring. And they're going to try everything possible and move guys around. Do you think Carson Hensman isn't going to be their starting center in 2026? I, I think that's, I think that's on the table. Like, I'm going to percentage of you think it's on the table like 35. I guess they've been talking about Padilla is like the center of the future for a couple of years now. And Hensman, the opportunity he got at guard in 2024, he was pretty good. Like, I don't think Hensman has to play center just because he's played center. No, I'm with him. I'm, again, I'm just talking about it. You kind of appreciate active there, go ahead. So do you think that was higher low? I thought it was kind of high. I'm at like 10 percent. I think Hensman's pretty, I feel pretty good that Hensman's going to be putting the football between his legs on the first staff of Ohio State season on the first snap of Ohio State

19:02season on offense. Okay. I say because I don't know. Both are on defense. But also there's a thing called kickoff. I'm just going to train for the ball state. I am. I'm with you. I'm not ruling it out. Let's also like Josh PD is in year what for now, year four. I do think it reaches a point where it's like it just hasn't happened and there have been opportunities, right? Like I don't know when he was in his second year here, I'll stay with him got a different center to play here. And then when that center went down with an injury and they started fit, you know, messing around with the offensive line to try to figure things out. I don't know. There were two other offensive linemen in his class who were playing in that national championship run. And he was not. And then when you had an opportunity in Carson, Hensman was playing guard at the time. They could have kept them at guard and played Josh, and then I mean this past year, I mean Carson, right. But there was like, I don't know like I don't know if Tegra played so well last year. Tegra is such an interesting thing because it's like Tegra wasn't good last year, but

20:07every single week, they would end the week going Tegra, Shabola's our best option at right guard. And at no point in the not in the thing is they changed offensive line coaches. So a brand new offensive line coach came in here, looked at everything with a different set of eyes and still decided Carson, Hensman's best spot is at center and not Josh Padilla and Tegra, Shabola should be on the field. So like you're right. From just like anything is possible to standpoint, yeah, I've lived in a world here once where we thought we knew what the offensive line was in 2021 and then two weeks in this fall camp, Dwan Jones is just starting right tackle. So I'm not going to rule it out, but it's just why would that happen now in year four when it hasn't happened at any other point in Josh Padilla's career is the only reason I'm pushing back on even my idea, like could it happen? Well, because I think what's interesting though is last year, as the season progressed, Ryan Day talked about feeling like Josh Padilla was practicing well and at that point in the year, getting him in a center didn't really make a lot of sense unless it was

21:07garbage time, but they didn't want to wait until garbage time to play him. Sure. If at some point in the season last year, like he's ready to go, but it's kind of too late to put him in a center now, because the season's already started, is that something you could re-evaluate in the off season? I think it's very much something. Possibly. David Jackson was the year four and it only played eight snaps at tackle. Yeah, but that was like, we had no other choice but to put Dwan and Jackson at left time. They tried somebody else to tackle before they tried Donnie. They literally tried to do the injury, add injury and all. Maholsky was getting benched whether or not he got hurt, but Gilles is correct in that. That wasn't their first choice when Josh Simmons went down to move even after two weeks. Yeah, in the moment, obviously, you just have to put Zin Maholsky in there because you're not going to reshuffle your entire offensive line at that point. So I get that. They came back after two weeks inside of Zin Maholsky was still the answer and then he didn't play well. It's like, we can't throw him back out there. After that. And so now they had a week to get done, but Jackson ready, I'm just, I'm not really an outie there. I'm also just like, we're four years into this and at no point has it even felt like

22:11Josh Padilla would be a better option at center than Carson Hinsman. And we just go ahead and see what I was going to say. We were, we were like, you better be damn sure if you're going to do that that Josh Padilla is all big 10 level center because I think that's probably where we're talking with Hinsman. It's like, Hey, if you're going to go Padilla is your center, you, he better be good. And also you better be sure that Hinsman, who I know he's played guard, but he hadn't played right guard. He played left guard when he came in, like you're asking him to go play a new position. And you had better not have a problem there. You'd better get really good play at a center because Padilla was there. And I think, I think we all can agree. Hinsman is probably going to be at the bare minimum, pretty decent this year, whether you want to say he's going to be pretty decent and he's a fifth round pick, whether you want to, whether you want to say he's the 40th overall pick and he's going to win the rimmington. I don't know. Yeah. I was going to say he was going to win though. I don't know what the fourth round pick part, but I was going to say he was going to win

23:11the rimmington award. Right. Exactly. Logan Jones, the kid who just won the rimmington at Iowa, I think they're talking about him as like a third round pick. So he's like, he's better than Carter. You can talk about, you can talk about Hinsman being to whatever degree of good, you know, but I think it's pretty clear that if you're going to do it, you know, Phillip Daniels has got to prove that he's that dude because today, so I have these notes just for context. There were three centers when they peeled off and they were taking snaps. Yep. It was Carson Hinsman. It was Jake Cook and it was true freshman Mason Wilhelm when they were doing bag drills, which is basically a two on one combo block, work up to the next level. They had Phillip Daniels working with Carson Hinsman, which I took note of, Phillip Daniels and Carson Hinsman don't combo block a lot, but Hinsman was snapping. They did have Josh Padilla working with Gabe Van Sickle. Josh Padilla was snapping, Austin served with Luke Montgomery work together, neither one of them had a football in their hands. And then they had Jake Cook and Maxwell Riley next to each other and Jake Cook was snapping

24:14a football. I also had Carter Low and I need to pull out my roster here because there's so many friggin new players. Sam Greer. So they had Carter Low and Roger roster for Sam Greer. Sam Greer is a large human being, by the way. Yeah, but when you have 77 written on a note pad, it doesn't go as hard as like looking at like, you see Sam Greer on the field and you're like, oh, that Sam Greer is 77. When you're looking at it on a journalism notebook and it just says 77-74, it takes a second to register. I saw Sam Greer and said, that guy's going to be an all-American. He is. And then he more was working with the only larger. Yeah. I mean, that's, I think the most notable thing for the offensive line from that standpoint is what you talked about earlier when they, they had them split up in the three different groups and it was very obvious like this is the tackle group. This is the center group and this was a guard group and like, who is in which of those groupings? Because like, they're mixing a match and when they're doing a lot of these other things purposefully because they're trying to figure out what the best combination is. But I think when they split them in the three different groups and I think I even said that the land is like, I like that they're doing that because they like helps us.

25:16And they're not doing it to help us, but it's just you got to categorize them the way that we categorize them. And like you're right. I saw there were three centers. Padilla was with the guards at that point when they were doing that even if he wasn't doing much. And then that's when I realized how large Sam Greer was because it was like, Lord, 75 is what he was looking at. Yeah, he's, yeah, I know and he looks every bit of it. He's towering over Austin, Sarah Bell, who is not a small person by any means whatsoever. But I just, no, I'm with you though, Stefan, these are all interesting conversations. They're trying to figure out the best combination. And if somehow Josh would get into being the starting center, am I going to be flabbergasted by it? Of course not. I'm just having a hard time wrapping my head around like, what would have to happen for that to finally click in your four given that Carson Hinsman is back on this roster? And it's like, Carson Hinsman has been your center for three of the last four years. I mean, for me, the thing that, again, I set 35% for like the thing that I would have to click is like, I know right guard sucked last year.

26:17So you're like, Gilles, you're talking about, like, could be as good as Hinsman was? I don't know. Well, can Hinsman be way better than could you have a six on tech or more in the top of that center? Sure. But you don't want to create another problem by trying to fix one true. That's what I mean, I have to be pretty, yeah, you have to be pretty confident. Yeah. I think I would do it. You do it. You put the idea, it's there. I would do it. I want you to tell. And here, March 10th, Ohio State plays a real game in just under six months. Yeah. Figure out the offensive line for week one. Okay. Let's figure it out. I mean, we saw our, but what more do you want to get the fill of Daniel's thing was actually kind of surprising. Because when I did some, like some of the, the depth charts and then on earlier this week, I wrote a story about here's offensive line and all the different combinations you had. Like, one of the things I really liked was the idea of eating more, being you're starting left tackle, served, moving to right tackle and Daniel's moving inside or even, you know, vice versa, where it's served with a left tackle, you know, right tackle. I got, I'm really high on eating more this year.

27:17So to, to hear like, Phil Daniels is working, I wonder if that opens the door to your tackles being more and Daniels was served inside, or if that is just saying, serve is going to be our left tackle, Daniels and more figuring out a right tackle and they're not going to worry about. Now, keeping in mind the veteran stuff, when they split up with tackles, it was Syrivel and Daniels and then Ian Moore and Carter Low, yes, which I thought was interesting. Is it just fair that whenever we talk to Tyler Bowen, go, Hey, why can this guy be a good guard and why can this guy be a good tackle just to see what his answers are? Fire away. Because it's like, I don't, because all this cross training is great, but do you, like, do you see something that can lead to you putting them in the game with that spot on Saturday? Because that's the thing. Last year when it was like very abundantly clear that, Hey, man, Austin Syrivel's probably going to play a tackle spot. It was like, Hey, what makes Austin Syrivel a good, okay, what made good tackle? Okay. What makes him a good guard? What makes Phil and Daniels a good tackle? What makes him a good guard?

28:17What makes Ian Moore a good left tackle versus a right tackle? What makes Carson has been a good center versus a good guard right now? The inside is a little bit more interchangeable easily because they're not on an island. So like the whole right and left side of the guard doesn't really matter as much to me as it does for tackle, because those can be very different job descriptions, especially depending on who you're playing, right? But maybe if we asked it that way, we'd get some answers where the description might help us understand why they're trying this guy here, but also do we think that they actually are walking away thinking this is feasible, because I think a lot of times we'll ask it in a way and the answer just ends up being, yeah, we're trying to guys all over the place. Okay. But why? Okay. Fine. But why is this guy doing these two specific things versus this guy is doing these two specific things? Because sure. Okay. Like Ian Moore got reps at x, y and z in spring practice. That's great. But you know what ended up mattering? Whatever reps he was getting out of the left tackle, because that's what he was planning

29:20against Miami in the second half when Austin Cereva got hurt. You want to know why it mattered that Austin Cereva was getting reps on both sides of the line of scrimmage in 2024 in practice, because that's what he ended up doing in the game when they won a national title. So that's I'm asking it facetiously right now, but in all seriousness, I'm almost wondering if that's the best way to approach this is like, why those two spots for that guy versus this guy versus why does why is Ethan Obenyawa, the only guy who was only repping at left tackle while everybody else was moving around last year. Because in hindsight, probably Ethan and Yahwa should have been getting some reps on the interior to see if he could do that right versus you tried to do it in fall camp and then you rotated him with tegrisha bowl like it's Texas and by halfway through this season, you knew he couldn't play for you. So that's what that's why I'm I think it's an intriguing ask is you want the position goes to to essentially break down their skill sets, because that's what they're trying to do right now in practice is break down people's skill sets and see who messes with who and who ends up being the best five in the room.

30:21And then six, seven and eight, as Ryan Day said, need to be versatile and be able to play a lot of different positions and essentially be twin guys. So that's a longer offensive line conversation than maybe I was anticipating having today a long. We have. We have. We have. That's my point on the defensive line. We'll get there. Okay. We're going to need to line hold off because we'll do that after the break. Yeah. No, I just want to add something about the old line real quick. Like whenever we talk to Tyler Bowen, whenever that is, maybe this is a really stupid question. But I want to ask him the value and the balance of cross training versus just saying you play here, like, like, what is the balance of saying, well, let's go to practices with Austin's interval, the right guard, because why not? Maybe one day we're in a position where we need him to play right guard. How do you balance that out with the need for just saying he's going to be our left tackle? Let's play him with Luke Montgomery every snap because Luke Montgomery is going to be our left guard. How do you balance the need between Philip Daniels is going to be our right guard and

31:22our face. Excuse me, right tackle. So let's, we're not, we're not really going to kick him into right guard right now. And if that's a bridge, we have to cross down the line, we'll come to it and we'll cross that bridge when it comes to it. But like, I'm curious about that because it is an interesting look, I think, when you talk about this offensive line because there's 80 different permutations. If on you wrote a story earlier in the week about basically detailing all of them, and I'm pretty sure, I don't mean this is disparagingly, you probably left one of them out or two of them out, even if they're unrealistic, just because like, that's how many guys can play that many different spots. But like, could Carson Hensman play left guard center or right guard? Sure. But what's the value of spending X amount of time and X amount of reps playing left guard, playing right guard, playing center? I don't know the answer to that question. So I'm curious what Tyler has to say about that because there are certain guys where I think you can lock it in and I think you would prefer to lock it in. And if you can just say, we're not going to screw around with Syribel, he's our left tackle.

32:22Okay. Well, then you say, okay, we're not going to screw around with my gum or he's our left guard. Okay. And then maybe on the second team, you can start to move some guys around. You're probably going to have injuries in the offensive line at some point, somebody's going to get banged up, somebody's going to miss a game or a player series or whatever. Okay. So that's one of one, we saw one hour practice and we just spent 40 minutes breaking down all these different things. Okay. Let's take a break and then we'll come back and talk more about defensive line and create more hypotheticals after we saw reality for one hour, by the way, on fuck I tell. America leads the world in medicine development. It matters. We get new medicines first, nearly three years faster, five million Americans go to work because we make medicines here at home and not relying on other countries keeps us safe.

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34:25Did you know only 6% of people are getting enough fiber? That's why Quaker created fiber February. A month-long movement to show your gut a little more love. It's like dried January, only easier and more delicious. Quaker has over a hundred delicious options that are a good source of fiber. So go buy Quaker Roads today and join the fiber February movement for a healthy gut. And we're back here on Buckeye Talk, Steve and me and stuff on Christnake and Andrew Gillis. We saw one hour of Prac, listen man, this is good, this is good, this means the juices are flowing, right? There's also like 20 minutes of Friday talking. Yeah, I know. Yeah, I know. It's 20 minutes. Okay, so fine. An hour of 20 minutes worth of material and we are going, I'm not saying it's like it's a bad thing. I think this is great that we're ready to jump into this because now we have something to base it off of versus us just like, you know, thinking what it is, what it is, what it is. No, no, we saw things and so now we're trying to react to those things and I think it's

35:26good. You watched the trenches because of course you did. What do you think of the defensive lot? My thoughts on the defensive line are we don't know what the hell we're talking about, which is why it has to be hypothetical. So the way that they started this conversation or the way that they started today was Boat Kinson and Kinyata Jackson, where you're starting defensive ends and Will Smith, Jr. and Edgar Houston, where you're starting defensive tackles. Those were all returners. This is why I said what I said about Terry Moore at the top. Those were all returners. Those were all guys that have been here before. Those were all guys that have played here before. Multiple years in fact, right? Boat Kinson, this is his second year with the program. What do you have seven and a half sacks when he was at UNC? He's got a year of eligibility left. Kinyata Jackson's a fifth year guy. Will Smith, Jr. I think he's a fourth year guy and then Edgar Houston's a third year guy. So veteran. All right, cool. Well, they also went and got two fourth year guys from Bama and James Smith and Quay Russo and then they got a fifth year defensive tackle in John Walker from UCF.

36:28And I think when we did our defensive line previews, I think some of us had like two transfers that we're starting, like would not shock me if we get to the end of March, early April free game, fall camp and we're right, we're just not right, right now. If that makes sense. It doesn't. It doesn't. I look at this defensive line and I saw, oh, there's going to be some battles here. He didn't really factor in much today, but you want to talk about looking the part, carry wilder looks the part brother, holy smokes. Does that do look like a future all big 10 past Russia? He was obviously not kind of factoring into the two deep today. Thought Drake win. He had some nice, he had some nice get up and go as well. But Ray, Quay, Russo, I'ma said, Ray, Q saw Quay was, I thought they're easily most explosive defensive line, man, just kind of going through drills, getting off the ball. I thought he looked quick. I think when Larry or Patricia talks about him, you're going to hear fast, quick, twitchy,

37:31explosive, bouncy. You can hear all those words used to describe him. James Smith and John Walker, I think is going to be a let's wait and see until we get the pads on, pad start pop in. We see if one of those guys can kind of handle a nose roll, but there's going to be a lot of permutations and a lot of moving parts. You thought it was a lot on the offensive line. There's a lot going on on the defensive line. And I just think through one hour of spring practice, it's impossible to tell because I think there are dudes who did not start with the first team today who will be playing more than the dudes who did come to see it. I like that. The defensive line is just intriguing because you have so many different styles of athleticism, sizes, in terms of just build for guys, it's all very intriguing because it's so different. I like what I saw from Quay Russo today because I know I've been pretty high on Zion Grady this off season and projecting him to be the starter, you know, opposite of Kenyatta Jackson. But, you know, Quaylor pretty good there, his athleticism is definitely, you know, something that's going to be an X factor for Ohio State this year and something that could blow

38:31up a third and, you know, medium third and long pretty easily. He's definitely smaller than the other guys in the position room, but the athleticism definitely pops. You mentioned while they're there, I kind of like thought in its totality and I know some other guys on the beat had mentioned this too, but the freshman, like physically look better than the transfer part, right? Yes. You mean, like Perez kind of looked the part and like obviously there's more to becoming a good college football player than, you know, physically looking the part, you know, I'm not saying Perez is going to start over, you know, a James Smith or an education or anything like that, right? But, like these guys look pretty good and then you add in the experience that you get from the transfers, I think, you know, take it with a grain of salt an hour of spring practice, I feel okay about the defensive line room, maybe more so than I did when we did the defensive line pre-guided them fourth, you know, among my defensive positions in terms of my rankings for expectations for them this year, right?

39:32And I feel a bit more, you know, comfortable seeing them. So, yeah, the defensive line is just, it's an interesting group to me, you know, we saw that, like you mentioned at the start, Steve and the four guys were kind of quote, unquote, first team. We're also, you know, the returners, right? I don't think any of us are projecting both pro-accent to be the starter at defensive and for Ohio State. And Wilson Smith, I think, is interesting because he was pretty good last year. Like, I wonder if he's maybe even into, like, Leroy Roker boat where it's like, they went out and got transfers, but like, what if this guy just pops and he's the starter as a returning guy? But I probably wouldn't say yet that we're projecting to be a starter. But when you bring in that, the retention that you do have and the experience of those returning guys with the experience that you got from the portal, and that's all mixed in with different body types and different athleticisms, it's, it's a really interesting group. I, I wonder if we leave the spring and that's just the toughest position group to project the starter's eye, right? Because I think when we get to the end of the spring, safety, we might have a good idea even if there is a little bit of a battle between Leroy and Terry Moore.

40:34Corner, I think we've already got a good idea, right? Offensive line, sure, maybe we're still trying to figure out, you know, the right side a little bit. We're going to have a decent idea though. We know who, at least three of the five starters are. And I think after day one, we're still pretty, pretty confident that Philip Daniels will be a starter for this team. So it's like, you go up and down this roster. I feel good about this defensive line. I wonder if after the spring game, all come in blind saying, okay, Stephen, who are your four starters on defensive line, Andrew, who's yours, stuff on who's yours? I would be, I would be pretty surprised if all four of us had the same combination for you guys. Or all three of us had the same combination for you guys. If I said to you guys right now, you have to make a bet. You have fuck I talked to and I give you the leading sat yetter is. And I say, can Yada Jackson or the field, who do you take? Devon Sanchez. I'm taking, I'm taking the field, because I think linebacker is interesting in this too, right? I know. I don't know.

41:34I think it could be a myriad of different guys. So I don't have to pick a defensive lineman. I can pick whoever I want. I said the field. Okay. Jalen McClane. Oh, no, man. It's just a defensive line. I mean, it could just be, like, it could be, can Yada Jackson, newcomer or the field, somebody who is a depth player, like, because it could be a leg row, it could be, quite Russo. It could be Carl Wilder. I don't know. Like, it could be, I think it could be a myriad of different guys. So I don't have to pick a defensive lineman. I can pick whoever I want. I said the field. Okay. Jalen McClane. Oh, man. It's, we saw that. I don't know. It's, I don't know. I'm trying to not jump through a bunch of hoops. I thought guys look good. I thought, yeah, I was saying it to a couple of people. I thought that the defensive tackle freshman actually looked more impressive just from my eye test standpoint than the transfer they brought in. And I think that's a good thing. Because that means their evaluation, at least from a physical standpoint, was pretty good with the freshman. And like, I mean, it doesn't mean that their transfer portal class is going to be at miss. It's just like, man, I was, I don't, I wasn't expecting the freshman to look like that at defensive tackle the way they looked like that.

42:35So that, it may be caught me off guard in a way that like, I thought the transfer defensive tackles, John Walker and James Smith looked like what I thought they would look like. You know, James Smith is wearing number three, which is weird. It's been a while. I think the last time a defensive tackle here was wearing a single digit number was to Ron Vincent. And it looked just as weird as James Smith wearing number three as a defensive tackle or defensive lineman wearing single digits. Yeah. But I don't, I don't mind that with edges. You're on edge. What's the big dude in the middle? You were in a single digit number because I think it's ironic whenever you have like a big dude who weighs like 340 when we're in like number nine or we're in number one or something. Kind of dig that for single digit numbers on one defensive line. I don't like it. That's your traditional. Is any other thoughts? Any other observations or anything we heard today that is notable that we feel like we need to mention here. We haven't mentioned Julian saying, yeah, we're not going to, we're not going to, here's why we're not going to talk to Julian saying on Thursday. So we can spend that pod talking about Julian saying, I don't know, man, they threw on air.

43:35Yeah. It's hard because the reason why is because the thing that day wants to see Julian saying, he can't do right now and satisfy anybody's like need to see it. We all want to see it, right? We all want to see him, you know, be willing to make plays with his legs. We want him. We want to see just how much better he is because he is the third second year quarterback that Ryan is had. But the problem is, I don't, there's a lot of things we want to see from Julian saying that Julian saying can't do until he's allowed to be hit. So unless day is going to do what he did last year, which probably not because that would be chaotic to do when you don't have a battle going on. It's just kind of, let's see what he has to say and we'll kind of go from there with the Julian saying, we'll talk with Julian saying in Kinyana Jackson on Thursday after practice. Chris, it's pretty good. Yeah. He's as tall as advertised. He is as tall as advertised. Jeremiah Smith is still on my roster. I did. Maybe I can ask Julian about it. I didn't want to ask Brian Day about the, you know, mobility with Julian, like, how do you, you want him to grow in terms of how he uses his legs, like, how do you do that in

44:36an off season? Because he's not, he's not, he's not turning into Lamar Jackson overnight. So it's like, how does he become better with his legs when his athleticism can only reach a certain point. And then you're also not experiencing that in the spring. I'm interested to ask him that whenever we get to speak to him next. Yeah. And it's the thing with the leg and it's, yeah, you're right. It's going to be interesting to talk with 10 because it's, there's a ability and just like a want to, right? And that's what it felt like with a CJ straw where it's like, you can do this and you're not doing it. Why aren't you doing it? And then the Georgia game happened. And now we've watched him with the Texans be harassed every single game and have to run around with Kyle McCord. It was a, you're not doing this, but also you don't really have the capability of doing this. So what do you do with that? I think we are 14 games in the Julian Sands time as Ohio State's quarterback and you've seen some evidence that would suggest if you're on the side of he doesn't have the ability

45:39to do it, you can point to those things. And if you are on the side of he's just not doing it, like he's choosing to not do it, you can point to these moments of like he can do, like the Penn State play, he can do that. So why aren't you doing it? And I think that's the question I almost want to pose because like, you're more of a, like, how do you work on that? I'm in a like, are you, can you do it? And are you just not doing it? But even that, but that, even then it's like, you, how does he work? How does he work on that in the spring? Yeah. Or not even in the spring and preseason, like, how do you work on that before September 5th? Yeah. Yeah. That's fair. Okay. Well, what did you say else? Yeah. This is a lot of Julian, say and talk after saying we're not going to talk about it. I've been in a way. 40 minutes talking about 30 million variations of the offensive mind that are not going to happen. All right. Good. And what's your point? What's your problem? I could, I could argue Carson has been moving to guard as more likely than Julian saying

46:41scrambling on a big play, but that's, that's neither here nor I think. I mean, we've seen Julian's scramble on a big play though. We've seen Carson incident play guard. We've seen Carson isn't play guard more than we've seen Julian say and scramble on a big play. It's not, not Julian things. I think one thing that all, all three of us noticed, Nate Roberts, yeah, flying stock looked pretty good. And like, we saved the hype up the tight ends portion for the end of the pod for, you know, we can't lead with that because people are going to tune out if we lead with that. Can't be careful without much you talk tight ends after last season, but I thought, I thought, hey, Roberts, in his route running looked good. I think we know, you know, different things that tight ends could do. And some of that is like really hard to see even in the spring. Like how much were we going to see Mason Williams getting after it in the trenches in the spring, probably not a ton. But I thought Nate Roberts running routes looked pretty good and it was going up against some safeties and made some guys miss it. I thought it looked pretty good. I think he's going to be a very good tight end here. And it was good to see him blast that again, Allegro, I mean, he's kind of run a slot

47:41receiver. I thought that was pretty impressive. Legend Bay, he's a little bigger than maybe I was anticipating for a guy who spent his career plan quarterback at a smaller high school. And yeah, don't send us. Locked and then got after let's talk about what had the running mags doing up down. What was there is this like for like an inside baseball thing, the way the way these practices run, especially when it's on the indoor, like where the media stands is always where the running backs are doing their drills. And we see Locked and just getting after it with these guys. It's the best. It's a legend Bay was not holding the ball where he should be holding the ball and he let him hear it. Stanley Jackson, one of the like, I guess we don't use the term like scholarship, non scholarship anymore. I feel like if this was five years ago, we would say he's he's a non scholarship running back. Like he was going through drills at one point and Locked just walked up and just pushed a ball out from his head like with ease. That's what led to the up downs. Like Locked, the media being next to running back drills is always the best because we just

48:46he's just it's no mercy. It's no mercy. And I love it. You think that's nuts like you're like, Oh, what year? Brother, I was at a high school recruiting camp outside on the field. He's doing this with 15 year old who are not his players. He's like, when high school kids do, he's like, No, we're not doing this up now. And we're like, blow the whistle. And I'm just like kind of like laughing at it because I think they I think a large newman hall was here that weekend, the running back commit in 2028. So he was like lead in the group and he was like the number one kid in the group. Obviously, like, that's how those things work. But I'm standing right there and like everybody else is like, because it's kind of instructive and, Oh, you know, you're you're keeping eyes on kids and, and you know, they're high school, they're children. And you're trying to help them through the drills. And then Carlos lockins making those kids do walk down, which I thought like you were like, Oh, that's crazy. I'm like, I've seen it even crazy. I want to do a story on that on the ground. No, no, I know what up, I actually grew up at a time when it was normal to do up downs.

49:47I know just like Carlos Lachlan's coaching style, because there is, it's, it's so old school. Like seriously, the kids doing up downs in this day and age, like, I, I'll stay typically makes kids run or lap if they fumble the ball. Not the whole position group doing up downs and you don't have time to do that. You only get a certain amount of hours with these kids. It is the, the quote on quote kind of old, old fashioned way of coaching, but also like he's still able to recruit like an old fashioned way. Yeah. Like how many, how many minute running backs coaches in the country could get a quench on and trade down together or get Isaiah to stay when Bo Jackson's coming back or, you know, whatever the case may be. So it is kind of this interesting overlap. I, I will say like, we're, we're talking about off downs, there, there are so many like exercises you can do. It feels like there's just like new ones made up all the time to its core. There's still nothing worse than like burpees and up downs. Anytime your body has to go from like upright to on the ground to upright, whatever, whatever motions you're doing to get there, it's just miserable.

50:49Well, shopping your feet. Yeah. Do you ever have that like, I don't know if you guys put like high school football or whatever, but like you would have like my coach whenever we were in high school and the ball would hit the ground, fumble, whatever, like if we were doing routes on air and the ball hit the ground, we'd do up. But like we would fumble and everybody would just go, oh, there we go. Sugar and you would just hear the whistle blow. I, I could wake, I could hear chugum and a whistle blow and I would wake up in a cold sweat at 3 a.m. And just beat my heart would be going 150 beats per minute because I'm just, it draws back awfulness. When I, when I covered Mississippi State and they were like the humid Mississippi days in August, when they would do like preseason camp and each would have them do up downs or something, like I, like I genuinely like hurt for the players. I was like this like because you're also when you're lifting yourself up off the ground the humid day in Mississippi, you're like 20 pounds heavier because your jersey's just

51:50soaked and your pants are just soaked from the sweat like. And you would dive on the ground at seven in the morning and it would still be kind of like dewy from the night before and you just, you, you're like not that way. You just dive face first and all of a sudden you're soaked just so you know, that's, that's my biggest takeaway from the day is Carlos Lockwood had his running backs doing updouds on the first day of spring practice because of course he did it. Seriously, it's, it's intriguing because Tony offer used to be like this when he was here, that those camps in June, he would put these recruits through like hell because he wanted to see if they could survive the workout and I'm wondering, you know, Carlos Lockwood is the same guy who's like, they're going to take on my mentality. They'll have a choice if you're going to be here. Like there's a, a way he approaches this that it does bring the best out of his players. I mean, he had two thousand yard running backs in 2024 and he had a true freshman running back on the thousand yards and a true freshman running back like his best game of the season

52:51was against Michigan on the road in the snow. So it's against results and he's probably about the land of five star day one. I'm going to be the best running back in this room type of recruit here in the next couple of months here. We'll see what happens with the DG, but it's like it produces results, but that balance you have to walk when that's your approach in this day and age where it's not easy to be the hard you know what type of coach and not have it rub people the wrong way. So I have to think it's interesting, but that's day one. One more practice before I'll say heads off spring break. Doing rapid fire pod for tomorrow, though, just got to give it interesting. Just to see like, hey, we gave you some information. You got any questions coming off of that information as we, as I'll say, spring practice is underway one down 14 more to go with the spring game, closing things out on April 18th 61435, both five two week free trial 399 after that for stuff on Christmink and Andrew Gillis. I'm Steve Remains. Talk to you guys later.