This year’s Ohio State offensive line opens the season with more than double the experience it had at this time last year.
The 2023 front (left-to-right) of Josh Simmons, Donovan Jackson, Carson Hinzman, Matt Jones and Josh Fryar entered the season with a combined 43 collegiate starts. Simmons, Jackson and Fryar are back in their same roles with Alabama transfer Seth McLaughlin at center and a fresh face at right guard in Tegra Tshabola. Even with Tshabola’s zero added to the total, the Buckeyes have 91 combined starts in their starting offensive line stand going into 2024. By the time they hit Big Ten play, they’ll have more than 100 starts across their front five.
Of the 91 starts, McLaughlin has made 24 of them. And his veteran savvy could be a valuable trait to have manning the literal middle of Ohio State’s offense as the Buckeyes’ offensive line keeps hunting for a resurgence in 2024.
“He doesn't blink,” Jackson said. “He's not jittery out there. He's played in about the biggest games that you can think of. So you can see his experience, his leadership at the center position, just communicating down the line and making sure everyone's on the same page.”
McLaughlin started all 13 games for the Crimson Tide in 2023, allowing just one sack, which came in Alabama’s College Football Playoff loss to Michigan. He opened another 11 games in 2022.
The Buckeyes missed such experience at the center position last campaign. Ryan Day stated earlier this offseason that 2023 was probably a year early for Hinzman, a redshirt freshman at the time replacing multi-year starter Luke Wypler. Hinzman was Ohio State’s worst-graded lineman, per Pro Football Focus, with a run-blocking grade of 52 and pass-blocking mark of 42.4.
The offensive line is one of the most developmental positions in football. Hinzman may still become a great player, but McLaughlin’s at a place now where he’s seen things before. He can make the calls. He knows how to approach his development, which is now in year five at a major college program.
“I'm just coming out each and every day with a purpose and I have a few things that I try to work on each day to get better at,” McLaughlin said. “I think that's what my experience has kind of helped me with is when you go out to practice and you have seven or eight things that you want to work on, they're not really going to get worked on because you're going to be tired. So you have to have those one to two things that you wrote down in your notebook.”
McLaughlin feels settled in enough now to make his voice a leading one on the offensive line. He feels chemistry developing between himself and the unit’s other pieces, too.
“At this point, I don't feel like a new guy,” McLaughlin said. “I feel like I've been here for a while. Just with the relationship I have with the guys in the room, I don't feel new, and I think that's awesome. It's a testament to those guys welcoming me in here. I'm ready to go to work.”
“He's played in about the biggest games that you can think of. So you can see his experience, his leadership at the center position.”– Donovan Jackson on Seth McLaughlin
That experience is noted by the younger players in McLaughlin’s position room as well. Luke Montgomery, a sophomore who worked at center this preseason after playing tackle last year and guard in the spring, has been impressed by McLaughlin’s daily approach.
“He's a pro. He's a pro,” Montgomery said. “He takes the field like a pro. He takes the classroom like a pro. He obviously has a lot of experience. Being able to play three years at Alabama is a huge accolade that will help him throughout his career, obviously, and help him now here. Just being able to learn from him and just kinda sit back and listen to what he has to say, because at the end of the day, he's seen everything. He knows everything, and he just kind of goes out there and plays.”
Ohio State’s offensive line has undoubtedly been its most criticized unit through 2023 and all of the 2024 offseason. The group as a whole is driven to improve on its results from last year and has taken said criticism to ever-so-slightly stoke the flames of motivation burning within them.
McLaughlin is no stranger to catching flak. He had bad snaps pop up in some places last year, particularly in the loss to Michigan, and has worked to correct those slip-ups in the spring and summer. All of that, both for he and this year’s front, is ultimately in the past, however. A bounce-back campaign will rewrite negative narratives and push the Buckeyes to high heights, and the man in the middle is confident he and those alongside him can get the job done.
“I can't really speak on what happened last year, because I wasn't here,” McLaughlin said. “But that wasn't the group that we know that we can be. I feel really confidently that we have six, seven, eight guys that can get the job done in this position group. I'm really excited about going forward this year.”
It helps that he’s been able to hone his game by working against star defensive tackles Tyleik Williams and Ty Hamilton in practice.
“I've really enjoyed going against this defense because it's not typical,” McLaughlin said. “Some of the SEC defenses are more two-gap defenses (from defensive tackles), letting the linebackers make plays. But this, the D-line's going forward, penetrating off the ball. When I've gone against those types of defenses in the past, I've kind of struggled because we didn't go against that every day. ... Learning how to play against this style of defense is really beneficial for me.”
Any talk is cheap, however. The offensive line and the Buckeyes as a team need to keep putting work in and deliver positive in-game results. Through his experience, McLaughlin has learned that well.
“You can't listen to (the hype),” McLaughlin said. “You're going to have those expectations. I think we've done a good job of not thinking about those expectations. If you approach every day like you're the best in the country, if our best right now doesn't improve, there's going to be a team that's not as good as us right now that's improving all along the season that's going to beat us when we play them. So you have to approach it like we're not the best form of this team that we can be.”
