Big Shoes To Fill
While there is a lot of attention and concern being paid attention to an Ohio State defense that is breaking in four new coaches this year, the Buckeyes are also going to be taking the field with new quarterbacks and a new quarterbacks coach.
In two years with Ryan Day as OSU’s quarterbacks coach, the Buckeyes set records with two completely different quarterbacks. Both JT Barrett and Dwayne Haskins excelled under Day, but now the coaching reins have been handed over to Mike Yurcich.
Day brought Yurcich over from Oklahoma State and soon after his arrival, the quarterback room began changing almost daily.
Three OSU quarterbacks transferred out and three others transferred in.
Georgia transfer Justin Fields is expected to be the starter this year, but it will be up to Yurcich to get him there — and bring everyone else along as well.
“Yeah, he’s got a huge job ahead of him,” Day said recently. “You got some guys in that room who have never played before here at Ohio State. So some are older, some are younger but that’s a major challenge for him and that’s his first big test here. And I brought him in for a reason. Know a lot of people who worked with him and his background of teaching is strong.
“And then you look at what he did at Oklahoma State and you know some of the more productive offenses here in the last 5, 10 years, so that that was kind of the reasoning there and anytime you hire somebody, first off you want to know their background, but also people who worked with him. And he’s a guy who loves football, loves the Xs and Os of it, loves creating relationships with the players.
“And so yeah, this is a huge time for those guys to really build that relationship and then be ready to play on August 31.”
Safeties In Numbers
Ohio State’s new defense will feature several different looks from their safeties.
The base defense should have just one deep safety, but on passing downs there could be two with the Bullet dropping back to take one half of the field.
The strong safety will be up near the line of scrimmage on base plays, but then possibly become a nickel back on passing downs.
Those are all different responsibilities, which is why secondary coach Jeff Hafley is looking for safeties who can do it all. He wants players who can move from the line of scrimmage to center field from snap to snap.
Rather than only having safeties who can do one thing or the other, he wants to keep offenses guessing.
“We want to surprise both you and (other) people. I’m not saying that to be a smart ass or anything. It’s just the truth,” he said. “This spring it was learning how to walk the right way, then start to jog the right way and now we’ll start to get running.
“If you were at practice which you were a little bit, you saw it was pretty simple and we’ll keep it that way for the players, but there will be more creativity. You’ll see two safeties back there, one safety back there, maybe three safeties back there. That’s just the truth. I’m not trying to be evasive. We’ll do a bunch of both.”
Chips Off The Old Blocks
In 2014, freshman receivers Terry McLaurin, Johnnie Dixon, and Parris Campbell watched Evan Spencer and Michael Thomas, and learned about the kind of effort and physicality required when blocking for teammates.
Last season, another group of young receivers watched Terry McLaurin set the same kind of example.
Just as Buckeye fans will always remember Evan Spencer taking out two Crimson Tide players for Ezekiel Elliott’s 85-yard touchdown run, they also will never forget McLaurin taking out three Penn State defenders in last year’s come-from-behind win.
One more time because each step is so important: Dwayne Haskins barely avoids a batted ball off the edge, K.J. Hill hauls it in stride with cushion, Austin Mack sets the first block and then Terry McLaurin completely bowls three Penn State defenders as Ohio State high-steps away. pic.twitter.com/jXyWjp5jkM
— Garrett Stepien (@GarrettStepien) October 5, 2018
And just as McLaurin stepped up as a blocker, new Buckeyes must do the same this year.
How is that process going?
“Really good,” said receivers coach Brian Hartline. “I think a lot of times, they’re not as dominant as Terry McLaurin, but the overall challenge in the spring and understanding that we are replacing that, I think is a chip on their shoulder.
“So they’ve been doing a great job with it, we can always get better but in the end, more times than not they’re blocking for their own guy in their room. They’re blocking for KJ (Hill) or CJ (Saunders) or Chris (Olave), so we’re going to take a lot of ownership in that year in and year out and continue to get better at it.”
