Current and former Ohio State football players will both be back on the football field over the next seven days.
The 2023 Ohio State football team will take the field for its first practice of the year on Tuesday when the Buckeyes will hold their first of 15 spring practices at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center. Before then, eight members of the 2022 Ohio State football team will participate in the NFL Scouting Combine, where workouts will be held Thursday through Sunday at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
There’s no shortage of storylines entering this year’s spring practices, and we start this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays by previewing the ones that we’ll be most focused on when spring ball opens next week. After that, we discuss our expectations for all eight of Ohio State’s participants in this year’s NFL Combine – C.J. Stroud, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Paris Johnson Jr., Dawand Jones, Luke Wypler, Zach Harrison, Cameron Brown and Ronnie Hickman – and what we think they can accomplish this week.
The full rundown for this week’s show:
- 2:09: There are a lot more depth chart questions entering this spring than there were last spring
- 4:47: Why the offensive line is the No. 1 area we’ll have our eye on next week
- 7:58: Competition in the secondary is the No. 2 thing we’ll be watching as spring begins
- 9:32: We don’t expect to see many defensive scheme changes this spring – at least not while the media is watching
- 13:51: Jermaine Mathews, Carnell Tate and Noah Rogers among early enrollees we’ll be watching closely
- 16:54: Davison Igbinosun, Victor Cutler are transfers we’ll be watching most closely this spring
- 19:45: Jayden Ballard, Zen Michalski, Gee Scott Jr., Cameron Martinez among veterans who need big springs
- 28:09: C.J. Stroud can make his case for QB1 with a great throwing session and a good 40 time
- 32:36: Paris Johnson Jr. should excel both in combine workouts and team interviews
- 34:17: Jaxon Smith-Njigba and his 40 time may be the most interesting combine storyline among Buckeyes
- 37:24: Zach Harrison’s draft stock will soar if he can run as fast as he did in high school
- 38:26: Dawand Jones’ size is obvious, but combine will be a good litmus test of his athleticism
- 41:00: Cameron Brown will look to back up his talk about how fast he can run
- 43:58: Luke Wypler is the favorite to have the best bench press performance among Buckeyes
- 45:06: Ronnie Hickman could use a strong combine showing to get momentum back on his side
- 46:43: Taron Vincent is Ohio State’s most surprising combine snub
- 49:01: Ohio State men’s basketball finally won a game, and the freshman class (especially Bruce Thornton) is building momentum
- 56:37: That momentum will mean more if Brice Sensabaugh returns for another year – and there’s some talk he could
- 59:57: Outlook for Ohio State women’s basketball entering the Big Ten Tournament
You can listen to this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays in the audio player above or on your podcast streaming platform of choice (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts).
