Tegra Tshabola will 'probably' be full-time Ohio State RG moving forward

Ohio State redshirt sophomore offensive lineman Tegra Tshabola played just about every snap during a 35-7 win over Iowa last week. Tshabola has started all five games this season, but he rotated with redshirt freshman Austin Siereveld against Marshall and Michigan State.

Siereveld, though, recorded only three offensive snaps versus the Hawkeyes, and that was on the game’s final drive with the second-team offense.

Head coach Ryan Day was asked Tuesday if the No. 2 Buckeyes will stick with Tshabola as the team’s full-time right guard moving forward, starting with Saturday’s showdown at No. 3 Oregon.

“Probably,” Day said, “but we’ll see again — we’ll keep evaluating it on a week-to-week basis. But he is getting better, and we felt like he could handle those guys inside and give us the best chance in that moment to win the game [against Iowa].

“So we’ll kind of, again, evaluate it this week. But if he continues to improve and continues to do what he’s doing, then it’ll look the same.”

Exactly a week prior, Day was asked if he and his staff will come to a conclusion about who would be the permanent right guard, and Day said he didn’t think they were “there yet.” He also noted that both Tshabola and Siereveld graded out similarly in a 38-7 win at Michigan State that previous weekend.

Tshabola piled up 47 offensive snaps against the Spartans, according to Pro Football Focus, which had Siereveld down for 30 offensive snaps in that night. Siereveld came in and out for Tshabola, just as he did the week before that versus Marshall, when Tshabola logged 32 snaps and Siereveld was in for 26.

Siereveld started the first two games of the season at left guard while senior Donovan Jackson completed his recovery from a hamstring injury.

Both Tshabola and Siereveld were productive when splitting snaps. Two weeks ago, they helped Ohio State flirt with the 500-yard mark at Michigan State, where the Buckeyes rushed for 185 yards and, notably, didn’t allow a sack to a Spartans team that entered the week averaging 3.75 sacks per game, at the time the most of any squad in the Big Ten.

Tshabola continued his third-year breakout this past weekend against Iowa, while, for the first time this season, Siereveld took on a reserve role. The Buckeyes achieved great balance against the Hawkeyes, clearing the 200-yard mark on the ground and in the air. What Ohio State’s rushing attack did to Iowa was more impressive, considering the Hawkeyes came with a fourth-ranked rushing defense that had given up a combined 258 rushing yards through four games.

Originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo — and fluent in French — Tshabola moved to Ohio as a kid and, eventually, became the No. 8 interior offensive lineman in the 2022 class at Lakota West, according to the On3 Industry Ranking.

In training camp, Tshabola beat out Carson Hinzman — the Buckeyes’ starting center for 12 games last year — for the Week 1 right guard job. Now, in-season, Tshabola appears to have held off a fast-improving Siereveld.