Urban Meyer admits this spring is unlike anything he's encountered as the head football coach at Ohio State. He identified it as "uncharted waters" upon completion of the team's first practice, but his tone is much different when the annual spring game sitting 11 days away and plenty of question marks littering the roster.
"We still have a hard time putting together a depth chart," Meyer said Tuesday after Ohio State's ninth spring practice of 2016. "There’s a theme to every week to what we do around here. The first one is install, then spring break, next one we’re just getting used to practice and last week was to create as much chaos as we could throughout the week of practice and watch guys respond.
"And then this one just because of where we’re at, shut it all down because we have to make some hard decisions coming up here. There’s some guys that are gonna play and some guys that aren’t gonna play."
Ohio State's roster looks much different than it did this time a year ago, when the bulk of starters returned from the 2014 national championship team and spring drills were more about development of backups than getting top guys more reps to risk injury.
Then nine players left school early in favor of the NFL Draft and 18 seniors graduated. The roster turnover is palpable, with only six seniors left and a stunning 45 set to have four years of eligibility left.
“And then this one just because of where we’re at, shut it all down because we have to make some hard decisions coming up here. There’s some guys that are gonna play and some guys that aren’t gonna play.”– Urban Meyer
Add that to the fact the Buckeyes have a bevy of would-be starters injured this spring and practice hasn't exactly been the most pleasant thing to watch for Meyer.
"There's guys that we're really counting on that have not been able to go because of injuries," Meyer said. "It's a thin ... you watch practice sometimes and you just wince and go 'oh my goodness. Where are we going to be here?'"
It's a fair question, but key guys like Pat Elflein, Billy Price and Raekwon McMillan haven't been taking as many snaps as usual due to their past experience. It helps having a quarterback like J.T. Barrett in the fold to call the shots as the team's unquestioned starter, but he has to have guys around him to get the ball.
The majority of them remain unknown, but the potential to be great remains. Meyer sees that, too.
"But I think we'll be OK if everybody gets healthy," he said.
Five more sessions at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center remain before the spring game kicks off at 1:30 p.m. April 16 at Ohio Stadium. Time is running short for those guys who haven't made much of an impact to make a dent in the program and become contributors. If others put themselves in a better position to perform this fall, however, it is up to Meyer and his assistants to make the tough decisions for the program.
"Last week was about chaos as we had 3,000 students in there, loud noise the entire time and screaming, yelling," Meyer said of Saturday's fifth annual Student Appreciation Day. "On purpose, we try to create situations, environments. I’ll probably shut down practice for everybody on Thursday and Saturday this week just because we have to get better — now."
