Taylor Decker is just a junior in his second year as a starting offensive lineman for Ohio State, but to the Buckeyes he's the elder statesman of the group.
Decker has 17 career starts for Ohio State, while the rest of its four starting offensive linemen — Pat Elflein, Jacoby Boren, Billy Price and Daryl Baldwin — have combined for just 13.
Decker, though, can relate to what the other four linemen are going through as he was the "young guy" last year on a line that had four seniors, two of which are starting as rookies for NFL teams.
“Oh, 100 percent," Decker said Wednesday when asked if he understands what the younger linemen are going through. "I went through that my freshman year and last year, especially in spring and stuff like that, flipping around positions and just getting reps wherever I can. It’s a big adjustment coming in here for some of these guys.”
And it's looked like a big adjustment for the unit as a whole so far this season for the Buckeyes. They played poorly for one half of the season-opener against Navy and in a 35-21 loss to Virginia Tech in Week 2, the Ohio State offensive line allowed redshirt freshman quarterback J.T. Barrett to be sacked seven times.
The more inexperienced linemen, Decker said, may have gotten caught up in the moment a little bit against the Hokies.
“I could definitely see that because they obviously came out in a defense we weren’t prepared for," he said. "We haven’t really seen anything like that, ever and they had good players executing it and it was definitely — first night game for a long of young guys. There was a lot going on, a lot of stimuli and I could definitely see that. It was definitely a tough game for us as I’m sure everybody can see.”
The Buckeyes insist they've moved on from the loss to Virginia Tech and they seemed to have taken out that anger on an overmatched Kent State team last Saturday in a 66-0 win.
In that game, Ohio State got an opportunity to play a plethora of young linemen in addition to the other starters outside of Decker, but as the lone linemen with any significant experience, Decker feels he's got more of a responsibility to lead the way for the team going forward.
“I think you just have to be real with them. You can’t tell them things that aren’t true and you just have to be open and honest with them and tell them that type of play is not gonna be acceptable around here," Decker said. "We have a culture we have to uphold and we have a standard, but also there’s times where guys need some encouragement. They have an off play, they know what they did wrong and you just need to pick them up. You just need to pick them up and give them some of that confidence because they don’t have it. I just think that’s the biggest thing with some guys, being confident in what they do.”
