Ryan Day publicly addresses Seth McLaughlin injury

Ohio State lost Seth McLaughlin for the season earlier this week after an injury to his Achilles.

With that, Ryan Day addressed the next loss on their offensive line while speaking to the media on Wednesday. He further confirmed the Achilles tear while expressing how much the Buckeyes hate this for their starting center in McLaughlin.

“Yeah, you know, Seth tore his Achilles on a non-contact injury,” said Day. “Crushed for Seth, you know, and our team.”

However, Day also moved past it to an extent just a day afterward, as there’s much to do now in his absence.

“But, you know, once that wears off, you’ve got to move on. It’s a next-man-up mentality,” Day said. “Certainly, nobody cares. So, you know, we’ll make adjustments.

“You wake up the next day and you move on. But, yeah, it’s tough. But that’s why, you know, you recruit depth and that’s why you work to get those guys in the game. That’s why you work in the offseason to build depth. We knew things like this can happen. It’s not the NFL. You can’t just sign guys off of waivers. You have to have guys ready to go because, again, at the end of the day, nobody cares. We’ve got to move on and we’ve got to win games.”

Those “next men up” will be Carson Hinzman shifting back to center, where he was as the starter there for all of last fall, while Austin Siereveld, a second-year lineman, will then take his place at left guard. Day is already confident in that realignment too with their respective experience and how they looked in those spots at practice yesterday following McLaughlin’s injury.

“You know, we’ll move Carson to center and move Austin in there at left guard. Those guys were in there today, had a very good practice, very spirited practice. I thought, you know, we all did a great job, you know, after that went down yesterday and then even today,” Day said. “So, you know, excited for those guys to get in there and, you know, have a great game. It’s a great opportunity for those guys. They’ve both played a lot of football. Won a lot of games with Carson at center and Austin has played.”

None of this is ideal with how things have gone for Ohio State’s offensive line this season. It’s even less so with every game that they’ll play for the rest of the year being an important one for one reason or another.

Still, Day is ready to adjust and thinks that Ohio State will, following this news.

“So, yeah, again, you know, it’s like a body blow when something like that happens,” said Day. “You know, Seth means a lot to this team with what he’s done since he’s been here. You know, we’ll talk about that in another moment. But we’re going to move on and focus on the future and focus on the guys that’ll be in the game.”