After months of offseason workouts and practices, Ohio State football's spring game is finally here.
Ohio Stadium will be open to fans and Big Ten Network will televise the Buckeyes as the offense and defense battle on the gridiron at noon Saturday. The spring game will serve as the last of 15 practices for Ohio State in the early offseason, but the first time the program will compete in front of fans in the Shoe in 2023.
With the intrasquad scrimmage about to kick off, here are our final thoughts, questions and players to watch before the Buckeyes face off in this afternoon's contest.
Final Thoughts
This is the last time we'll get to watch something that resembles actual college football until September, so enjoy it
Admittedly, spring games aren't always a great indicator of how a team or player is going to perform in the fall, one way or the other. I mean without looking it up, you probably already forgot who the spring game hero for OSU was in 2022 (or maybe that was just me).
But nonetheless, for one day, football is (kind of?) back, and a decent crowd will arrive at Ohio Stadium Saturday to get their first glimpse of what the 2023 season could hold in store. We'll have coverage aplenty on Eleven Warriors breaking the game down, and if you can't make it to Columbus, the action will air on BTN.
Football withdrawals can begin as early as February but for one day, some of those can be quenched, and even the most pessimistic of fans are going to find at least one positive takeaway from the day because the Buckeyes are guaranteed to win no matter what.
- Garrick Hodge
Kyle McCord won’t win the job today, but he can make it his job to lose
Even if Devin Brown was healthy, the spring game was never going to be the sole determinant in the starting quarterback competition. Ryan Day wants to see one quarterback consistently outperform the other across numerous practices before he names a starter, and he said that hadn’t happened yet as of Wednesday.
Still, the spring game was always and is still going to be an important factor in the starting quarterback competition, and not solely for public perception. Unless Ohio State decides to open up one of its preseason practices to the public (here’s my official suggestion that the Buckeyes should in fact do that), Saturday will be the only opportunity between now and September to evaluate how the quarterbacks will perform in a game-like setting while Buckeye Nation is watching, and that’s important when evaluating candidates to play one of the most high-profile positions in college football.
“You can say that it's the same, it's not,” Day said. “It's just not the same being here and practicing in front of just a small group as opposed to being in the stadium.”
That leaves the door wide open for Kyle McCord to begin separating himself from Brown in the quarterback competition if he can perform well while taking likely all of the reps with the first-team offense on Saturday.
McCord has always been perceived to have a slight edge in the quarterback competition because he has at least some playing experience at the collegiate level, and Brown has now lost his best opportunity to flip the competition around. Day is likely to let the competition continue into the summer rather than name a starting quarterback after the spring game, and that will certainly be the case if McCord doesn’t perform well today – but if he does, he’ll leave spring well-positioned to ultimately be QB1 for the Buckeyes this fall.
– Dan Hope
Questions
Will the offensive line show improvement?
Ryan Day hasn’t hidden his feelings about Ohio State’s offensive line play this spring. With three new starters to name up front, Justin Frye’s group has struggled to keep the Buckeye defensive line out of the backfield for large swaths of the spring practices that media members have been permitted to attend. As a result, Day said there’s “a lot of work to be done here in the next few months” before he’ll feel comfortable with the unit.
But perhaps Saturday could be the first step toward turning the corner. The battle at right tackle, where Tegra Tshabola and Zen Michalski have split most of the first-team reps thus far, may be the most important competition of all as Day and company must decide if they need to bring in a transfer portal prospect in the aftermath of the spring game.
– Griffin Strom
What will the running back rotation look like?
Ohio State will be without TreVeyon Henderson and Evan Pryor in the spring game, while Miyan Williams will be limited to a few drives as he endures an ailment head coach Ryan Day confirmed is “not long-term.” That leaves the Buckeyes with Chip Trayanum and Dallan Hayden as his only healthy scholarship running backs on Saturday, but is any football player actually 100% after 15 practices, most of which were full contact for the ball carriers? Probably not.
That said, I will be interested to see how Day, Brian Hartline and Tony Alford split carries between Williams, Trayanum and Hayden on offense. Will those three backs provide enough for the Buckeyes’ run game to be an effective part of the offense and help Kyle McCord, Tristan Gebbia and Co. push the ball down the field? They certainly have the talent and ability, but Ohio State’s training staff better have an ice bath ready for the trio after the game because they will undoubtedly have some bumps and bruises after clashing with the Silver Bullets for 60 minutes in the Shoe.
- Chase Brown
Players to Watch
Carnell Tate
No true freshman has made a bigger impression this spring than Tate, who lost his black stripe in record-setting time and has looked like one of the best players on the field at times, particularly in Ohio State’s Student Appreciation Day scrimmage, even though he could still be a senior in high school.
With Julian Fleming, Emeka Egbuka and Xavier Johnson all unavailable for the spring game and Ohio State likely to be cautious with Marvin Harrison Jr., there will be plenty of opportunities for Tate to make plays on Saturday. The spring game typically tends to be a pass-heavy affair, and there’s a good chance Tate will be in the starting lineup with the first-team offense based on his performance over the last five weeks.
There have been already plenty of Ohio State fans clamoring to see Tate play in the scarlet and gray, and the excitement of his potential future as a Buckeye will grow if he can show the same playmaking ability in the spring game that he has in practices all spring.
- Dan Hope
Jack Sawyer
The No. 3 defensive lineman and No. 5 overall player in the 247Sports composite rankings for the class of 2021, Jack Sawyer is back at defensive end after a season at the Jack position in 2022. That feels like fantastic news for Larry Johnson.
This fall, Sawyer will consistently line up opposite JT Tuimoloau – another top-ranked recruit in the class of 2022 – and next to Mike Hall Jr., Tyleik Williams and Ty Hamilton on the interior. The spring game will provide a look at what the Rushmen can accomplish next year, and I believe if they are to be even somewhat successful, it will begin and end with Sawyer.
Sawyer was a game-wrecker in high school, but that was years ago. It’s time for Ohio State fans to see what he can do in college. At 6-foot-4 and 265 pounds, Sawyer has the size and strength to overpower offensive linemen, but he also possesses the athleticism to maneuver around them. He has the tools; now, he needs to apply them. Saturday’s scrimmage will be the first opportunity to do that – albeit in a small sample size – and could be the catalyst for an excellent season for Sawyer in 2023.
- Chase Brown
Kenyatta Jackson
The success of Larry Johnson’s unit this spring hasn’t just come from the veterans. Despite playing just 24 snaps as a true freshman in 2022, Kenyatta Jackson appears to be making significant strides ahead of his second year. The top 60 overall recruit out of Florida certainly looks the part at 6-foot-5, 252 pounds – 17 more than he weighed out of high school – and production on the practice field has followed suit all spring.
Jackson was a standout performer in all of Ohio State’s open scrimmage viewing windows, frequently knifing into the backfield to blow up plays and create sacks. But of course, Buckeye fans en masse weren’t privy to those sessions. Jackson can cap off a stellar spring with another impressive effort in front of a potentially packed house at Ohio Stadium Saturday.
– Griffin Strom
Kyle McCord
Well... Duh, right?
Admittedly, Brown not being able to participate in Saturday's scrimmage due to injury is a flat-out bummer and makes the spring game far less interesting from a storylines standpoint. But that doesn't mean OSU coaches and fans alike aren't curious to see how Kyle McCord looks in a semi-pressure moment as the de facto starter for Saturday.
At the beginning of the spring, Day said he'd like to decide on a starting quarterback by the end of the spring if possible, and given the circumstances, it seems that the quarterback competition will continue into fall camp. But from the limited practices and scrimmages we've been allowed to watch this spring, McCord has looked to be the better of the two quarterbacks vying for the starting job. Saturday is another chance for McCord to make a statement with a dominant performance and perhaps inch a bit further ahead to cementing his place as QB1 for this fall.
- Garrick Hodge
