When Larry Johnson said it, an audible gasp came over the reporter scrum circled around Ohio State's defensive line coach.
"We have a chance to have six ends and six inside guys going into a game," Johnson said Wednesday after practice. "That's pretty good depth. We're young, but we've gotta let them go and play."
The idea of 12 players rotating in the trenches this fall for the Buckeye defense is sort of staggering. Eight players saw action with any sort of regularity in 2015 — Joey Bosa, Adolphus Washington, Tyquan Lewis, Sam Hubbard, Tommy Schutt, Jalyn Holmes, Mike Hill and Tracy Sprinkle, with the latter two really only increasing their workload in the Fiesta Bowl. They played more because Schutt sat out with an injury and Urban Meyer suspended Washington after a solicitation citation.
But 12? That's a whole bunch, especially on a team with more than 40 players owning freshmen eligibility.
"I think we have great leadership from other guys but this is what coaching is all about, right?" Johnson said. "Get the young guys to grow up and keep them growing. It's really exciting for me to be in this position."
Johnson could not recall a time in his career where he had to rely on so much youth in his unit to perform. Hubbard and Lewis will start at end next to Sprinkle and Hill, though Meyer hasn't announced the tackles as starters yet. Johnson considers Holmes a starter too but then listed Dre'Mont Jones, Rashod Berry, Davon Hamilton, Jonathon Cooper, Nick Bosa, Robert Landers and Jashon Cornell has players who all could see snaps. All of those players have never played a down of college football.
“Just gotta keep in mind the guys behind the guys that play are young. So we just gotta get those guys to grow up pretty fast and that's what we're trying to do now.”– Larry Johnson on Ohio State's DL
"They rotate a lot, I noticed that during practice," left tackle Jamarco Jones said Wednesday. "Every couple plays you've got a new, fresh guy over top of you."
That is the goal of any defense, especially in this age of the spread offense where offenses run as many plays as they can in the hope of tiring out the big guys up front.
"You want to stay fresh," Johnson said. "That's the goal going in."
Injuries are the first avenues for why a team's depth reduces, followed closely by a lack of development. The defensive line already lost Darius Slade for the season with a ruptured Achilles tendon, but Johnson feels comfortable with the freshmen he worked with both last year and those members of the 2015 recruiting class. At least right now.
"Just gotta keep in mind the guys behind the guys that play are young," Johnson said. "So we just gotta get those guys to grow up pretty fast and that's what we're trying to do now."
Joey Bosa's ejection in the Fiesta Bowl coupled with Washington's suspension and Schutt's injury put a strain on some of the players mentioned already in Johnson's unit like Sprinkle, Hill, Hubbard and Lewis. Against a high powered offense like Notre Dame, they answered the bell.
"I think it helped us a lot because a lot of guys had to step up that game," Sprinkle said Wednesday. "I feel like we stepped up to the challenge and it helped us get our feet wet a little bit earlier for going into this season."
The season opener against Bowling Green sits 10 faithful days away, so it won't too long until we see for sure if in fact Johnson shoves as many as 12 players in and out on the defensive line. He said every year the goal is to have anywhere from eight to 10 players who can do the job and do it well. Upping that by a few more should allow for the Buckeyes to stay even fresher, provided each guy named Wednesday produce at a high level and play with speed.
"Everybody, the rotation and everybody that's on board with the unit and just keeps going, we just move so fast as a unit," Lewis said. "It's like a wave of guys. It's just all so fast. Everybody on the D-line."
