Scarlet Sunrise: With significant blend of talent and experience, Buckeyes embracing pressure of 2024 season
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With significant blend of talent and experience, Buckeyes embracing pressure of 2024 season
Urban Meyer didn’t hold back when talking about this year’s Ohio State squad in an interview with NBC 10TV.
“As of now, this is one of the most talented rosters in the last decade — maybe ever,” Meyer said, via 10TV’s Adam King. “I mean, that’s a big statement. They’ve got to play, but if you look at the quality of athlete at every position, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Jim Tressel — who, like Meyer, led the Buckeyes to a national title during a his tenure as Ohio State head coach — feels similarly about the 2024 roster.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that many great players in that building all at once,” Tressel said, via King. “Every position, every place you turn — Ryan’s done a great job, Ohio State has done a great job. …”
It’s not just the talent, though, at least according to sixth-year head coach Ryan Day. He believes the separator is the blend of talent and experience.
“We’ve been talented, there’s been times in the past when we’ve been talented,” Day said Tuesday in the Woody Hayes Athletic Center. “I don’t know since I’ve been here if we’ve been this talented and this experienced together. … And that does matter.”
Ohio State wouldn’t be in this position had 11 starter-level and draft-eligible players not decided to return this offseason. The excitement of that group running things back put a miserable Cotton Bowl performance — and a third straight loss to Michigan — in the rear view mirror. It also lured top-tier talent in the transfer portal, and experienced talent at that.
During the winter portal window, the Buckeyes reeled in six scholarship transfers, including a graduate quarterback with 27 career starts (Will Howard), a graduate center with 25 career starts (Seth McLaughlin), a two-time All-SEC running back (Quinshon Judkins) and a second-team AP All-American safety (Caleb Downs), among others.
Ohio State has standout players, or potential standout players, at every position. The Buckeyes have depth at most of those positions, too.
“The expectations are the same every year. The pressure’s the same every year,” Day said. “I just like the pressure when you’ve got a really good team behind you. So that’s what we’ve got right now.”
Those expectations? In Day’s words, “beat ‘The Team Up North’ and win every game after that.” He believes his program has made the necessary changes this offseason to accomplish that feat.
In addition to the Buckeyes’ roster reset, they also made key coaching changes. Ohio State didn’t retain three position coaches — and another left early in spring ball — and so the Buckeyes made three hires to fill those vacancies, most notably bringing aboard former NFL and college head coach Chip Kelly to serve as Day’s offensive coordinator, play-caller and quarterbacks coach.
Day gave up play-calling and is trusting Kelly, a lifelong friend and coaching partner, with both the call sheet and the quarterbacks.
Although Ohio State might look different in key areas on staff and on the field, the Buckeyes benefit from returning production, and their formula to win “matchup games” remains the same.
“We know what we need to do,” Day said. “We have to be able to stop the run, run the football and take care of the ball. There’ll be opportunities to throw the ball, that’ll happen. But we’re going to have to do those things to win close games and play situational football.”
Day added: “I think you won’t really get a feel for what the identity of the team is until we get into the beginning of October. I think we all have ideas of what it could [be], but now that we’re playing in a[n expanded] playoff format, just like a lot of those NFL teams, sometimes they don’t really quite understand their identity until they get about halfway through the season. I don’t think it will take that long, but we’re able to play some games and kind of work through some things.”
They’ll have to work through those things by October 12. That’s when the Buckeyes make their trip west to play Oregon. In other words, that’s when the pressure really kicks in.
And so should that significant blend of talent and experience.
Roundtable: Will Buckeyes offensive line have bounce-back year in 2024?
Lettermen Row “Offensive Line Week” continues, and we’re getting right into a roundtable discussion about the unit up front. Beat writers Spencer Holbrook and Andy Backstrom went back-and-forth, breaking down what’s a pivotal third year for Buckeyes O-Line coach Justin Frye.
Ultimately, they tackle the question of whether Ohio State will bounce back in the trenches this season. Before that, though, they examine the depth of the unit compared to last year, among other things.
Check out that discussion here.
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Quick hitters from Ryan Day summer update press conference
Ryan Day met with the media Tuesday to provide a mid-June update about the Buckeyes, about a month ahead of training camp.
He answered questions about recruiting this time of year, about the expectations for this year’s Ohio State team and about why he and his staff didn’t make certain moves in the transfer portal.
The answer that grabbed the most headlines was easily Day’s addressing the decision not to add a portal running back this spring. He revealed that, to bolster running back depth, stud safety Caleb Downs has spent a bit of time with the running backs this offseason, along with fulfilling his normal safety duties.
Get the full rundown here.
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Counting Down
Buckeyes vs. Akron: 73 days
Buckeyes vs. Michigan: 164 days
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