Despite rather pedestrian numbers to date — 17 career appearances, only 1 start and four career tackles — Tracy Sprinkle was expected to be a major contributor to Ohio State’s defensive line this fall.
Don’t take my word for it, though. Here is Buckeyes junior defensive end Jalyn Holmes following his team’s 77-10 season-opening victory over Bowling Green on Saturday, a game in which Sprinkle suffered a likely season-ending injury:
“Tracy is the heart of the D-line, man, and it was hard dealing with that in the locker room. He’s everything to the D-linemen and I just feel for him right now. He’s everything to us and it’s going to be hard to replace him but he’s going to be with us throughout the whole process.
“I feel like we’ll be OK, but that’s a soldier that went down today and everybody felt that on the team and now we’ve gotta do our best to replace that.”
Those are certainly strong words from Holmes. Sam Hubbard, Tyquan Lewis and defensive line coach Larry Johnson all shared similar sentiments, too. Sprinkle had worked hard, waited a long time for his chance to play and his injury was a difficult thing for his teammates to deal with.
The season will go on, though, and now the Buckeyes have to figure out a way to replace a starter up front. Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer called the injury to Sprinkle a “big loss” Monday, and Johnson was later asked about the Buckeyes’ plan of attack to replace him.
“I think they’ve all got to step up; I don’t think it’s just one guy,” Johnson said. “It’s a group of guys who now have to carry the load for us.”
Ohio State has a few options here as far as individual players go, but the bottom line should be to perhaps expect even more rotation than we saw Saturday against the Falcons. Johnson said he wasn’t sure who exactly would earn the start, but a pair of redshirt freshmen — Dre’Mont Jones and DaVon Hamilton — are the leading candidates at the moment.
Jones, a converted defensive end like Sprinkle, seems like a more natural fit at the three-technique alongside nose tackle Michael Hill. Hamilton is a bigger body and is probably better suited at the nose, but Johnson said those two will “battle a little bit here” in practice this week.
Redshirt freshmen Robert Landers, Jashon Cornell and Josh Alabi could also see some snaps in the rotation and both Meyer and Johnson said true freshman Malik Barrow will also get a look in practice this week.
There’s also a chance we see an increase on guys like Holmes and Nick Bosa moving inside, especially in passing situations. But Meyer said he’d like to avoid that on first down and normal situations.
Either way, Ohio State’s depth on the interior of the line will be tested even more without Sprinkle.
“When you look at the number of guys we played in the game, I think they see exactly who we are and we’re going to continue to do that going through the season,” Johnson said. “I think the guys know that the next guy up has got to be ready to go and that’s where we are right now.”
