Jim Knowles: There's still plenty to be determined in Ohio State linebacker room

With spring ball in the books, Ohio State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles is taking stock of his linebacker room. With the season still a few months out, he has time to sort through the talent he has available.

That’s a good thing, too, because he said there’s still a lot to figure out.

The Buckeyes have some good returning talent at the position, including Teradja Mitchell and Tommy Eichenberg. However, they made some big additions on the recruiting trail, notably landing five-star CJ Hicks — the No. 14 player in the country from the Class of 2022, according to the On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.

Four-star Gabe Powers also enters the fray as the nation’s No. 118 prospect, per the On3 Consensus. Ohio State then brought in transfer DeaMonte Trayanum from Arizona State to add some more expereince.

Knowles has options, and he knows it. The job for the rest of the offseason is to figure out how those pieces fit together.

“I think that in terms of the actual playing time, who’s going to get the majority of the snaps?” Knowles said. “I think there’s a lot of good candidates. But how that’s all going to shake out in terms of who plays the most, who has some specialty things they can do to help the team, packaging, where they can go. I still think there’s a lot to be determined in terms of the actual snaps and rep counts that come up in-game.”

Jim Knowles knows how much talent is in the Ohio State linebacker room

This isn’t the first time Knowles discussed the linebacker room with the media. He did so during spring practice and talked about the leadership returning players such as Mitchell and Eichenberg bring to the program in 2022.

“You have to be able to make an assessment,” Knowles said. “In order to make an assessment, you’ve got to get the guys repetitions. And there’s a lot of talent, but none of it is completely proven, right? Because you have guys all competing for positions. So that’s where you want to take guys and maybe move them to other positions just to get a chance to look at them.

“I think Tommy has been a great leader for us. I’ve really liked what I’ve seen out of Tommy. I think he’s mastering the defense quickly and making plays. He’s quiet, but he’s fierce. Teradja is also a guy who leads in more of a vocal way than Tommy. But he gives us a lot of that energy.”