COLUMBUS, Ohio — It is telling that Ohio State football’s offensive line situation has drawn such scrutiny in the same winter that started a quarterback competition.
To be clear, the duel between Kyle McCord and Devin Brown to start the Sept. 2 opener against Indiana still draws the most attention. The process of replacing two tackles and a center headed for the NFL Draft, though, is easily the No. 2 area of concern.
That would not be the case if the Buckeyes had recruited an abundance of obvious options. The seemingly endless list of outlets who cover the program, including this one, conjured their early speculative prediction of the final starting five.
At a Wednesday press conference, coach Ryan Day first said Ohio State would be “moving some guys around” but did not want to divulge details. Then he divulged a lot of details. Some of them canceled out educated assumptions, and some introduced new names and concepts.
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Last year’s starting guards, Donovan Jackson and Matt Jones, will remain guards. The first plan will be to find another center without moving Jones there. Jackson has left tackle skills, but he’s too valuable at guard and would only move over if injuries demanded.
Josh Fryar, who backed up Dawand Jones at right tackle last season and started one game in his place, is the front-runner at left tackle. Day emphasized that is the current plan, though Fryar has a big spring and offseason ahead of him to lock it down.
So that leaves two still-glaring openings. As much as past recruiting failures appeared to put OSU in a tough spot, two recruiting successes may end up solving the problem.
When discussing center candidates, the first name out of Day’s mouth was redshirt freshman Carson Hinzman. And part of that movement he referenced would involve redshirt freshman Tegra Tshabola — all 6-foot-6 and 330 pounds of him — moving to tackle.
Other names will also be in the mix. Even if Hinzman and Tshabola win jobs, second-year offensive linemen — even some pretty great ones — have not always thrived from Day 1 in recent Buckeye history.
Yet regardless of who moved where, the final solution for putting together an offensive line was probably going to require someone new to step up. Day and Frye both talked like that is happening, with the start of spring practices still five weeks away.
“We want to make sure we get somebody good at playing one position, and then go from there,” Day said. “That being said, sometimes you don’t know what you have until you move guys around.”
Ohio State knew it was losing starting tackles Paris Johnson Jr. and Dawand Jones to the NFL Draft. Center Luke Wypler’s departure to the NFL, though, came as more of a surprise. Day said the staff “hoped he would not declare,” though he also wished him the best and predicted he will find pro success.
However, it created a big hole with no obvious fit beyond sliding over Jones. Last year’s second stringer, Jakob James, was on the list of players Day announced as being out for the spring. Vic Cutler, the transfer from Louisiana Monroe, will have the most center experience of anyone this spring.
Hinzman, though, made a strong impression in bowl practices. A top-200 prospect in the 2022 class out of Hammond, Wisconsin, he did not play a snap last fall as a true freshman. But Frye said the summer enrollee progressively improved to the point that his clips against the starting defense began to stand out.
“He’s just a worker,” Frye said. “The best thing about him is he just wants to keep working. So we’ll give him a shot to get on the field and compete like a lot of the rest of these guys.”
Tshabola’s shift outside was easier to predict, based on sheer size. All 51 of his game snaps last season came at right guard, though Frye said he also played tackle last fall. Considering the 6-8, 360-pound hole Jones left at right tackle, maybe another massive presence will step up to fill it.
The Lakota West product’s time was certainly going to come, eventually. He was a borderline top-100 prospect in the 2022 class, and you can’t teach that size. Hearing his name this early in the offseason means he could be ahead of schedule — and that couldn’t come at a more crucial time.
“He’s a great bender — he’s got push, strength,” Frye said. “When you contact him, it’s like running into that wall. Some guys are more guiding guys, or electric football table. You hit Tegra, you know you’ve hit Tegra.”
Day said Zen Michalski and George Fitzpatrick are among the other contenders at tackle. More shuffling could take place between now and the April 15 spring game, let alone the start of the regular season.
Right now, the right people are saying the right things about some potential contenders.
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