Ohio State Buckeyes: 4 observations, 4 things to watch after 4 days of practice

Here are four takeaways from the first four days and four things to watch this week in Columbus:

1. Physically, the team looks good.

Maybe this is not terribly remarkable for most college football teams in this day and age of modernized, year-round workouts, but it’s worth noting with the “soft” label dogging the Buckeyes ever since they got beaten up at Michigan in 2021. It will dog them until they beat the bully, which they can’t do until late November this year, and I am not going to belabor the point too much between now and then, but I do think it is worth mentioning.

There have been some questions about whether or not the strength and conditioning staff is keeping up with the times, too, though I’m not sure how much credence I give them.

I do think while the S&C program was gangbusters from the time Mickey Marotti came to Columbus with Urban Meyer in 2012, they lost some juice after the pandemic interrupted the process. Of course that was four years ago. The first class to be impacted is fifth-year seniors, and they haven’t won anything. Is that a coincidence? Maybe not. It’s certainly no excuse for this season, but then again it could be reason to think the Buckeyes went into the offseason with some room to improve in that area.

2. Maybe they do have a quarterback.

This is somewhat in the eye of the beholder, so you might see different accounts on this topic, and there is nothing wrong with that. I thought the quarterbacks just looked OK on day one then Will Howard was pretty impressive since then. There is a lot going on because they split the squad between two fields, but Devin Brown looked inconsistent when I was watching, making some nice throws but also some head-scratchers. Julian Sayin shows great potential, but I don’t see a freshman being entrusted with this team of veterans barring multiple injuries.

3. The secondary should be incredible.

We’ll see about the depth at safety, but a team that was already hard to throw again should be even better this seasons. They can line up and just win individual matchups or play around with different coverages to keep quarterbacks guessing. (I guess that is something to keep in mind with evaluating the quarterbacks…) That’s a pretty good deck from which Jim Knowles can deal.

4. The offensive line looked good (in shorts and not-full contact).

This is a bit related to the first point. Of course the big fellas earn their way via what they can do when things actually get physical, but also being big, strong and fit is a good start. I thought Josh Simmons and Josh Fryar, the starting tackles, looked noticeably more trim, though that is not to say I felt they were out of shape last year. They just look like they had a better base to work off now from top to bottom. Tegra Tshabola continues to mature as well, which is what you would hope to see as the years in a college S&C program stack up.

What to watch for this week:

1. A quarterback decision (maybe)

Ryan Day said he wanted to pick a starter within the first 10 days, so perhaps we get that announcement by the end of the week.

If Howard is named the starter, there will be an onus on Brown and the younger guys to continue to improve both for the good of them and the team.

2. Ohio State is off Monday, but the players are scheduled to check into their hotel for “camp” Monday night.

They practice Tuesday-Saturday then get another day off, so the coaching staff is likely expecting to get a lot of things figured out this week before turning its focus toward the season-opening game against Akron on Aug. 31.

3. Reporters are scheduled to talk to offensive coordinator Chip Kelly and the quarterbacks on Tuesday.

Howard and Brown are both excellent interviews, and getting go talk to Kelly is always interesting even if he keeps his potential plans for the offense close to the vest.

4. This week is packed with interviews.

Linebackers and running backs (and their coaches( speak Wednesday, and Day will provide an update from his perspective on Thursday.

Receivers and defensive backs wrapt things up Friday.

The Thursday practice is also open to the media to watch thanks to Big Ten Network being on site to film the action.