It's been a year since I first learned of Vic Cutler's existence.
He had racked up 21 starts on Louisiana-Monroe's offensive line, having lined up at both tackle spots. Left side, right side, he played center too - now that's elite versatility.
I learned the Buckeyes had snatched this protean talent out of the transfer portal and immediately thought of the late Charles Shackleford telling a reporter about his dribbling versatility:
I can dribble with my right hand and I can dribble with my left hand. I'm amphibious.
Cutler was a 2-star recruit out of high school and clocked a 42.8 PFF grade playing mostly Sun Belt foes. If you aren't versed in PFF grading, they're more directional than precise. A 42.8 means not good. Enokk Vimahi's conspicuously shaky Cotton Bowl performance earned him a 48.9 on 57 snaps.
So if you were wondering how Cutler didn't see the field before Vimahi did in that game, you shouldn't. He was already a Louisville Cardinal before Ohio State's plane touched down in Texas last month. His one-season Buckeye career ended after 21 garbage time snaps (precise) and a 61.2 PFF grade (directional).
The Buckeyes starting tackles Josh Simmons (68 PFF), also from the portal, and Josh Fryar (70.8 PFF) finished with stronger grades in their elevated degree-of-difficulty assignments which were good-on-good battles.
Simmons arrived in Columbus during the second portal window, nearly five months after Cutler showed up. His resumé showed stiffer competition, less versatility. His kryptonite: Snap counts. False starts. So he was jumpy but not amphibious? That's a paradox.
I was in town shortly after his arrival and met up with a friend who spends a fair amount of time at the Woody. We got to talking about the two large fellas who came in to fortify a line which had absorbed a 60% withdrawal to the NFL Draft.
"They love Simmons," he said. "If he can figure out the snap count thing, they've got a multi-season playable bookend." Sweet. Not Paris Johnson Jr, but those types are hard to come by. I asked about Cutler and the tone changed immediately. Meaning, he started laughing.
"That guy will never play here. He's a practice body." This seemed impossible to me. Why would anyone leave any program as an entrenched, versatile starer with two dozen starts and counting - to become a blocking sled at Ohio State?
"Don't say never," I said, being argumentative for no reason (I couldn't pick Cutler out of a lineup).
"Never. A thousand times, never. If he sees consequential snaps that means they are [aggressive fornication euphemism]." This presciently described the OL's Cotton Bowl performance six months later, which took place without Cutler.
Luke Fickell begged Urban Meyer to offer Antoine Winfield Jr. a scholarship and was unsuccessful because his boss did not believe he looked like an ohio state defensive back.
He could pick him out of a lineup, so his argument was stronger. I asked how he knew, since my level of sophistication for grading offensive linemen is south of PFF's.
My algorithm is simple: Consistently erase your guy + don't get penalized = you're Adipose Achilles and you have my undying loyalty. If Cutler wasn't going to play, my grade would be inconclusive - but I was intrigued how he was so confident. "When did you know? Did he just get trucked in drills?"
I wasn't prepared for his response. "I've never seen him play." Like, anywhere - he said he either had not or couldn't remember seeing his ULM tape. He had not seen him practice at the WHAC.
But his conclusion was emphatic. "He's not going to play here. I knew when I looked at him." He had been in the facility while Cutler was there. Not practicing, just existing.
"That's not what an Ohio State football player looks like. I don't know if (ULM's football facility) just had a broom closet with like one Nautilus machine in it, but he's going to need at least a year to almost look like a Buckeye. It's not going to happen."
That stuck with me. Simmons seemed like a computer program that just needed a little debugging, but Cutler was apparently a fixer-upper beyond repair? I have no idea what Ohio State's intent was in securing his transfer - like, if they just needed a practice body with game experience, great. But that wasn't going to refill that 60% NFL withdrawal.
And I've spent too many years with this program to believe that a body can determine one's fortune. I remember Jefferson Kelly, the next Orlando Pace. Derek Morris, the next-next Orlando Pace. Kyle Dodson, Kyle Trout, Evan Lisle, Matthew Burrell - guys who looked like Ohio State football players who largely spun towels over their heads on the sideline during games.
It's a long list, because body type is more directional than precise. Luke Fickell begged - begged - Urban Meyer to offer Antoine Winfield Jr. a scholarship and was unsuccessful because his boss did not believe Winfield Jr. looked the way an Ohio State defensive back should look.
He was convinced. Cutler vibes. Why do you think that guy could play here? He's *tiny*.
Junior was just 5'9", born in Columbus the same year the Buckeyes produced their first-ever Thorpe winner. That guy was also 5'9", a 1st round NFL Draft pick and also answers to Antoine Winfield so there was a legacy factor that should not have been taken so lightly.
In the end, Junior looked more like a Minnesota Golden Gopher - and unlike his pops, he didn't win the Thorpe - he only won B1G Defensive Back of the Year. Then he won a Super Bowl ring, as a starter with Tampa Bay. So he looks like a Buc, but not a Buck.
Kyle McCord is 6'3", athletic, looks like a quarterback and throws very well in drills. He's the first Ohio State quarterback since Joe Bauserman who didn't end up scaring any of Ohio State's opponents, concluding an incredible 12-season run for the program.
CJ Stroud is the same height, similarly agile - you watched the games - and surgically decapitated defenses for two seasons. Different talents, sure. But this is how Stroud reacted when his head coach chose to punt on 4th and short on the Michigan side of the field in 2022:
Ohio State took Stroud, an NFL offensive line and the best receivers in football off the field for Parker Fleming's punt unit, which false-started on the next play and botched a fake punt the play after that. Fleming received a $200,000 raise and a two-year deal after the season.
That doesn't show up on a biometric chart. The current national champions have a surplus.
As the kids are fond of saying, Stroud got that dawg in him. It's different from just having talent, height or weight. Ohio State needs more of that, and the coaching staff should cater to and elevate these guys. They should not take them off the field in the game's biggest moments - repeatedly - which is to say they could use more of that themselves.
These are exactly the guys Ohio State needs more of, which it secures - ULM's best lineman in 2022 was simply taking his shot at just becoming a part of it. What the Buckeyes need is a willingness to allow these guys with this orientation the opportunity to win games for them. Reaches in the portal are fine. Recruit better isn't dazzling advice.
Ohio State is not losing on big stages because of practice bodies. It's losing because of in-game coaching. It has a noted deficiency in playing to win on big stages. The kids call it puckering.
Cutler, bless him, won't even show up on some Let's Remember Some Obscure Buckeyes lists curated during the depths of future off-seasons - but I don't think his story is an indictment of Ohio State's recruiting, OL depth or any other symptom in what's become one of the most tragic three-year runs of double-digits wins this side of 1980s Tom Osborne.
I think it's a signal the program needs to overcompensate for its sluggish acceptance of the transfer portal era by figuring it out at least as well as its rival has. I think it means that if the Buckeyes are going to take a guy who doesn't look like an Ohio State football player, they should be sure as hell that he can play like one.
A prevailing complaint of the era we're in is the program's leaders are quiet types. Soft-spoken. Awkward and unnatural in any hype session - when aliens finally descend to earth to take humans out of our misery, for our sake I hope they're as incandescent and viscerally piqued as Marvin Harrison Jr. or Tommy Eichenberg. Oh, they're quiet. And nice? Maybe E.T. was a documentary.
So I'm good with Cutler types betting on themselves in a much larger, unfamiliar pond. He wasn't Winfield, or Jacoby Boren - and in the end, he just wasn't good enough and unsatisfied with just being a practice body. That kind of voluntary upheaval shows a willingness to fight like hell.
The program which ceded its dynasty to the worst possible successor needs more of that in the action and on the sideline. Perhaps enough of it on the roster can persuade the coach to become the aggressor with his - more often than not - bigger, faster and more talented roster. The vehicle doesn't even have to look like an Ohio State Buckeye.
Size is good. Speed is great. Brotherhood and culture are critical. But the aggressor always wins.
