Seth McLaughlin injury: Ryan Day addresses challenge of offensive line changes

While taking another loss to its offensive line this week, Ryan Day feels this one could be simpler for them to overcome at Ohio State.

Day spoke about the shuffling happening on the Buckeyes’ offensive line this week while on ‘The Pat McAfee Show’ on Friday. With a torn Achilles for Seth McLaughlin, Carson Hinzman will take over as the starting center again while Austin Siereveld will take his place at left guard. That should make for a better transition than they had dealt with earlier in the season since both of those players have prior snaps at those positions.

“Well, when it happened before the Penn State game, we had to move Donovan (Jackson) to left tackle and that was a change in position,” explained Day.

“So, now, we’re going to be moving Carson to center, moving on Austin to guard. But, like, these guys have played. Carson has played 12 games at center. Austin has played. He was there when Donovan was down early in the year. So, I mean, these guys have done it before,” Day said. “A different challenge, for sure, and we’ll have to see how it’s going on early. They’ve had a good week of practice, a lot of energy.”

Will Howard has also been big this week in those adjustments. Their quarterback has built that line up over the past few days in making changes with Hinzman and Siereveld.

“You know, Will has been unbelievable, you know. Seth went down in practice this week and Will was just like, ‘Hey, man, get on my shoulders. We got this thing,'” Day said. “Had an unbelievable Tuesday, Wednesday. Thursday was great. We had a great week of preparation here finishing up today.”

Offensive line is not a unit that you want to be rearranging going into the final weeks of the season, especially with every game from here being a massive one for Ohio State. Still, Day isn’t concerned about it with how he expects this one to work for them.