It was like a scene out of Anchorman.
Ed Warinner, minutes removed from conducting his first public appearance as Ohio State's offensive coordinator, sat swathed by reporters in the postgame media room at Ohio Stadium following the team's annual spring scrimmage April 18.
A question fluttered through the air and fell upon the ears of the man in charge of not only the Buckeye offense by the big guys up front. The query involved the guys at his disposal in his first year as the sole offensive coordinator — a year Ohio State will defend a national championship.
No, Warinner didn't channel his inner Brick Tamland and profess his love to inanimate objects around the room, but a single word kept coming up when he discussed the depth he's set to have at his fingertips in 2015.
"Excited about this fall. Excited about just the entire offensive unit," Warinner said after Gray topped Scarlet 17-14. "You can start at any position and be excited about that position."
He then went through each tier of the offense position by position, but that word just kept coming up — excited.
"You can start with the offensive line and you got four returning starters and a fifth-year senior coming back and that excites you.
"You can go to a backfield with Ezekiel Elliott returning and that excites you.
"You can go to a receiver corps with Mike Thomas and all these other pieces that we have out there and Jalin Marshall, so on and so forth and say 'boy, that's exciting. There's a lot of pieces there.'"
Being excited for something in life and looking forward to it are two entirely different things, but Warinner's not typically one to show his jubilation on the sideline. That is, of course, when his guys execute as flawless as humanly possible.
Ohio State's depth on offense certainly is staggering considering the only big contributors from the 2015 title team who graduated were Jeff Heuerman, Evan Spencer, Devin Smith and Darryl Baldwin.
The guys who return, though, make the Buckeyes the early favorites in 2015 and have Urban Meyer excited too. Well, as excited as a head coach can get.
"I kind of like our skill set," Meyer said in the week leading up to the Spring Game.
How can you not? Having Marshall, Elliott, Thomas and even Curtis Samuel all on the field at the same time this fall is a very real, very scary possibility.
"And that's not even talking about the position you guys all want to talk about but there's nothing else to talk about there," Warinner said smugly, referring to Ohio State's three-head monster of Cardale Jones, Braxton Miller and J.T. Barrett at quarterback. "We just gotta keep waiting until that time comes. How could you not be excited about that?"
Ohio State fans surely aren't disagreeing with you, Ed.
"As we get closer we'll start to narrow down the best players and who's going to play the most, but the beautiful thing about depth is it's competition then and the beautiful thing about depth is certain players don't have to play every play and they can be fresher and you can have a little more punch in the fourth quarter if you're rolling some guys through there.
"Couldn't be more excited this team, this offensive unit and where we could be in the fall," he said.
