Ohio State Football Notebook: ‘Put four hands in the ground and come off and kill somebody’

Must a Backup Be Known?

When it comes to coaches and discretion, the two rarely mix well. For instance, Michigan still hasn’t released an official football roster despite being less than two weeks from playing their first game. A New Jersey newspaper has filed a FOIA request just for a glimpse.

So you can imagine how begrudgingly coaches give out their respective depth charts even a moment before it is necessary.

There aren’t too many mysteries about Ohio State’s depth chart, though the backup quarterback job is still up in the air. Urban Meyer may or may not name a backup prior to the season opener against Indiana, and it may not have anything to do with deception.

“I don’t know how it’s all going to play out,” said quarterbacks coach Ryan Day. “We still have a lot of time, but I don’t believe they do [need to be settled on a backup]. Even the week leading up, and I’m not saying we’re going to do this, but I’ve been in situations before where even the week leading up to the game we weren’t sure who was going to be in certain situations. It wasn’t just quarterback. It might have been at other positions as well, because things change. Injuries happen, different things. We’re in camp right now, we’ll see how the next week or so plays out, then we’ll go from there.”

Country Strong

Ohio State signed three offensive linemen in the 2017 class in Wyatt Davis, Thayer Munford, and Josh Myers. Myers was the only one of the three to enroll early and take part in spring practice. He is also the only one of the three who still has his black stripe.

How has camp gone for Myers?

“Really good,” said offensive line coach Greg Studrawa. “He’s learning things. I’ll tell you right now, he is so strong. Physically strong. And he’s an excellent, excellent run blocker. We’ve had to work on pass blocking. You know he was in that offense where it was just put four hands in the ground and come off and kill somebody. So he’s learning to work on his pass protection, moving his feet. But he is a really strong, physical run blocker. We’re working on the rest of his game.”

Mr. So and So

The buzz word around the Ohio State football program nowadays is “rotation.” Anything that can be rotated, should be rotated. (Except for quarterback, of course.)

After the success of the defensive line and the cornerbacks a year ago, there’s no reason not to try and spread those results to other areas of the team. The talent has to be there to get it done, however.

That’s the situation currently for defensive coordinator Greg Schiano and the Buckeye safeties. He’d love to rotate the strong safeties if given a chance, but that depends on never allowing the level of play to drop.

“You’d like to be able to [rotate] if you could,” Schiano said. “I don’t know if I’d rotate Damon Webb because he kind of holds it all together back there. But you might be able to rotate the other two if they’re of equal performance. But we’re never going to suffer performance. The way you look at is if a tired so-and-so is still better than a fresh so-and-so, then you play the tired so-and-so. If when he’s tired, the other guy surpasses him, then you sub him out.”