Ohio State moving forward with right guard rotation plan

Ohio State spent the offseason searching for a starting right guard. Now the Buckeyes feel like they have two.

Ohio State continued to start redshirt sophomore Tegra Tshabola at the position this past weekend against Marshall. Tshabola, who got the nod in the first two games as well, played 32 offensive snaps in a 49-14 win over the Thundering Herd, according to Pro Football Focus. But redshirt freshman Austin Siereveld, who started the first two games at left guard in place of an injured Donovan Jackson, played 26 snaps at right guard versus Marshall, too.

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Tshabola was in for the first three drives, then Sierveveld played the next two. Tshabola came back in for the next three, although the first of those drives was a one-play, kneel-down series to end the first half. After that, Siereveld returned to the field for the final two drives with Ohio State’s first-team offense.

Siereveld and Tshabola each made an impact on a day when the Buckeyes returned Jackson to the lineup and replicated their offensive explosion from their previous game against Western Michigan with 569 total yards against Marshall, including seven run plays of 10 or more yards and four pass plays of 15-plus yards.

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Ohio State head coach Ryan Day reiterated Tuesday that he believes both Tshabola and Siereveld deserve to play.

“I mentioned that last week, and they both did,” Day said. “We’ll continue to evaluate it and grade and make sure, but we all know we’re going to need these guys, and that’s the thing, whether it’s [running backs] TreVeyon [Henderson] and Quinshon [Judkins] or Austin and Tegra, these guys are team players, and they want to win.

“That’s the No. 1 thing here. It isn’t about statistics or anything like that. There’ll be plenty of snaps to go around, we know that. So this week, we’ve got a new challenge ahead of us, a conference game on the road. So those guys will help each other, and we’ll see how this week of practice goes, and, as we get closer to the game, put a plan together.”

After cruising through a three-game non-conference slate, complete with a wins over Akron, Western Michigan and Marshall — plus an early-season off week along the way — the Buckeyes will open Big Ten play this weekend at Michigan State.

Day said that, as of right now, Tshabola will continue to start. Again, though, both Tshabola and Siereveld will play. It’s a plan Day said his young linemen are excited about.

“Giving both of them a chance to catch their breath for a series or two is actually a good thing for a young player,” Day explained. “So we look at that during the week. We’ll rotate those guys during the week so that there’s chemistry between Josh Fryar, Seth [McLaughlin] and both of those guys when they’re in there.

“And I think when you practice that way and then you play that way, there isn’t all of a sudden this chemistry issue or anything like that. As long as whoever’s not in the game is really focused in and seeing the plays on a tablet and seeing the adjustments in real time, I think that’s good. I do think that is a benefit to having the tablets is, although they’re not in there getting the rep, they can actually see what happened on the last series and make any kind of adjustments that are going on in game.”