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Could Caleb Downs Really Play Running Back For Ohio State This Fall? · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Wednesday, June eighteenth. I'm your host,
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  Tom Moore. The Akron game in seventy three days, the game to gets
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  Mission in one hundred and sixty four days. We were at Ohio State seven
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  on seven camp, last camp of the summer, but we're not talking about
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  seven on seven camp because we just got to talk to Ryan Day and had
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  one of those classic I'm sorry, did I just hear you right kind of
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  moments. Ryan Day was talking about the running backs and what they're gona doing
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  about running back depth. They feel pretty good about things and obviously get your
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  two guys and James People's and Sam WUIs six were pretty good over this course
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  of the spring. Then you know they've got some walk on options, and
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  of course Tony there's always Caleb Downs. Apparently there is always Caleb Downs,
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  and he just kind of threw that in there that if need be, they
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  can play Caleb Downs at running back, and it's something they've talked to him
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  about. Talk to him about it in the first recruiting, talk to him
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  about it in the second recruiting, and even it said they ran an option
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  pitch with him in the spring. Just you know, just to know like
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  it's still there. So yeah, you know, I'm type all of this
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  as he's talking and I'm you know, listening, and then that comes up
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  and be like that's like the record scratch, the typing. You're like,
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  what, like, what did you say? Is there a different Caleb downs
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  on the Russia that I'm not thinking of right now? Yeah? That feels
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  like that's probably a little bit of a break glass in case of emergency thing.
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  I think it would take quite an emergency probably to get to that point
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  where he's you know, maybe you see that in a package somewhere at some
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  point. I can't imagine that's gonna be a well we're just gonna we're gonna
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  limit him to twelve to fifteen carries a game. It feels like it feels
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  like that's much more of either hey, you really need something, you know,
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  something different, something completely out of the box, or just to create
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  a distraction. If I think anything else, well, I will say,
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  Tom, you say break break glass in case of emergency. Last year they
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  had Exavier Johnson and Chip train them, Chip train them. The year before
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  they had to break Glass and move him from linebacker to running back. Xavier
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  Johnson has been a receiver for the last few years but has had to play
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  running back each of the last two years, so they've had to break that
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  class. And Travion Henderson has an injury history, quinch On Judkins at this
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  point does not, So you know, I don't know that you can have
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  complete faith that Travian Henderson is going to be able to play all, however
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  many games. And then the ones behind those two are true freshmen and they
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  like what they saw out of James People's and Sam Williams Dixon in the spring,
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  and Ryan Day said they do have to play this year. Yeah,
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  but you might need more than that, and you might need somebody with experience,
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  even if it's not experienced at running back. Cale Downs is one of
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  those guys that you can put him pretty much anywhere and know that he's going
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  to do the job as well as it could be done by somebody who's doing
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  it for the second time or the third time. Right. The other issue
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  is you're going to also need him at safety. Well, yes, I
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  mean we'll get to the positions that were and they talked about as you know
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  issue you know, positive spots that were still looking at and one of them
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  was safety depth. So that tells me they don't feel comfortable about their death
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  behind held downs. So that's I think a concern. And the other question
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  is can he do the Chris Gamble thing. You know, Chris Campbell was
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  playing on one hundred and ten snaps in some of those games late in the
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  season. Chris Campbell is a remarkable athlete, not that Caleb Downs is not
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  a remarkable athlete, but even among remarkable athletes, there's a reason that that
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  is not the norm. So yeah, well we'll see how that goes.
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  We'll see how the you know. I again, I'm not expecting that to
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  be a regular thing, but just the fact that they're thinking about it to
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  the point that they were talking about it now is okay. That's that was
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  not what I was expecting to hear when I went in there. No,
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  because he didn't talk about it in the spring, no, you know,
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  and then just you know, kind of talked about it here and so you
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  throw that out there. I don't know, maybe he's just you know,
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  I haven't talked to these people in a while. I just not had a
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  media availability. So it's like you saying, you're just talking. It's a
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  casual because there was more of a casual new situation today, and so you
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  say that, and I wonder if there's like maybe I shouldn't have said that.
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  But also he didn't seem to because he answered two or three more questions
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  about it, and he just kept saying, look, you just you want
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  to you want to have a lot of contingencies in place, and he is
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  one of those. They feel very good about having those four running backs and
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  thinks those four will be enough. I do wonder, tom is Caleb Downs
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  the fifth running back or is TC Kaffey the fifth running back? Yeah,
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  well, I would say to start the season, I would expect TC kafe
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  to be the fifth running back and you know, we'll see I would This
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  is just me sort of thinking this through for fifteen minutes, but it just
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  feels like this is this is something that you might use very situationally. You
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  might use if things get you know, if you're in a very serious spot
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  later in the season in terms of depth start being thin. It's interesting though
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  to me that they did apparently work on this during the spring when Dalan Hayden
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  was still at Ohio State. Now we had a sense that Dalan Hayden was
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  still was maybe on you know, had one foot out the door at times
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  this spring. So and Delan Hayden did leave before the end of the spring,
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  and he didn't say was this practice one or was this was this practice
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  thirteen? You know, we don't know when the pitch played it to Cedric
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  kleen Down's house. You're saying, you think Tom right now, this is
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  you saying. Dallan Hayden saw the pitch and was like, that's it.
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  That was the pitch that broke the camel's back. That's not exactly what I
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  was saying. I just I think it is interesting that they were working on
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  this, that this was something that they did in the spring, and you
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  know, you talk to guys about a bunch of stuff during recruiting. They
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  talked to j T. Tuey Molo about playing basketball during recruiting. Has j
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  T. Twey Molo lot of stuff on the floor For Jake Diebler, he
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  has not. Do you talk about a lot of stuff that are recruiting,
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  It's like, sure, you can look at it, and a lot of
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  times you have big plan and then reality hits of like, hey, it's
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  kind of complicated to do be a football player at a higher state and then
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  also do other stuff on top of that. So you know, well we'll
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  see, but yes, that was definitely that was definitely a very surprising,
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  surprising piece of news. Some of it was probably not as surprising was injury
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  news, and there really is not much injury news. It sounds like most
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  of the guys from the spring who were out, you know, set up
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  as a carautionary thing. Lathan Ramz was kind of limited, Martley Hartford was
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  out for the spring. A lot of those guys. Sounds like really not
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  any lingering concerns that he talked about. Yeah, everybody who was out in
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  the spring is full going, the summary set and it will be full go
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  this season, which was basically what he also said in the spring. I
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  think the thing you wanted to know now is has there been anything new?
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  And he didn't seem to indicate that there was or couldn't figure he would have
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  remembered, because a lot of times coaches have trouble remembering or saying they have
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  trouble remembering all of the injuries. But if you have something that happens between
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  now, between like spring and now, it's gonna stick with you. So
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  I'm going to assume he's being truthful and accurate that nothing new has happened.
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  So everything looks pretty good at this point. So that's that's good news for
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  Ohio State. Also good news for Ohio State. They're pretty talented, They
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  have a pretty darn good football team. The expectations around this team. Urban
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  Meyer was asked about it earlier this week and did nothing to tamp down the
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  expectations around this team. And Day was asked about the pressure around that that
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  you know, people are talking about this being maybe the most talented team in
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  Ohio State history. And you know, urban Meyer was also the one who
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  gave Ryan Day the go get them Tiger speech when he sort of handed the
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  keys to the program over. So you know, I guess it's not a
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  huge shock that Ryan Day kind of goes yeah that, you know, high
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  expectations are not a new thing around here. No, Instead, the expectations
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  are the same they've been since he arrived in twenty nineteen and has Thatt coach
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  rather took the job over. But those are these same expectations he saw urban
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  Meyer dealing with. So what Yeah, when was the last time Ohio State
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  fans didn't expect the national championship was like twenty eleven, and even then it's
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  like, well things go a little too Just just go right, because I'll
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  tell you well in twenty ten. They certainly expected it in twenty eleven until
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  they figured out who wasn't coming back. Yeah, but the expectations are always
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  going to be high. The as we got a football runner for hearing,
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  the expectations are always going to be high. The presser, he said,
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  is always going to be high. And so you know, it is what
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  it is. You have to embrace it or else don't take the job.
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  Football on the ground has a football on the ground, moving on to the
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  spots where you know, where are they comfortable? Where do they feel like
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  there's still some work to do? Quarterback there was I will save you the
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  trouble. There's no quarterback update much much the same as the end of spring
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  ball. Still kind of up for grabs there. But there were at least
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  three other position groups where they're still looking and this is not you know,
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  what was interesting to you is there's really only one that he talked about other
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  than quarterback that is a starting position that's really a little bit unsettled. Everything
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  else was kind of death and boy, you want to talk about first world
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  problems, Well, you know, we've got some depth questions and a couple
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  of spots is a pretty first world problem. Yeah. So yeah, there's
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  still the same question that he's had all since. You know, the spring
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  is that right side of the offensive line, And he keeps saying the right
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  side of the offensive line because they feel Josh Fryer can play either spot.
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  And he's gotten better from the summer to now and was able to build off
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  of starting last year and learning basically learning where he needed to get better,
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  finding out what gave him trouble working on that, fixing that they say you
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  can play either, but right now they're leaning towards him stanke it tackle.
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  So then if your biggest concern is finding a right guard, like you are
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  the ninety nine point nine percent percentile of first world because if that's you anywhere
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  on the offensive line, it's probably like you want. If you have a
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  problem on the offensive line, please make it one of the guards. Don't
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  make it center, don't make it one of the tackles. And that's where
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  they are right now. And I still have I still feel pretty confident that
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  there's somebody that can play right guard pretty well, that's they've got a bunch
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  of guard types. Yes, so it shouldn't be hard to find it,
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  right. You've got Luke Montgomery, who was a If he wasn't a five
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  star, he was a high high four star. You've got Tager Shabolo who's
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  been around for a few years. You've got Carson Hinzman who started at center
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  last year, and if he's not going to start with at center with Seth
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  McLaughlin starting, well, then you've got him there too. This is not
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  a you know, three lottery tickets kind of thing. This is a you've
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  got the floor there is one of those guys is going to be a playable
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  big ten offensive lineman. At the minimum, one of them is going to
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  be a playable big ten offensive lineman, and then the ceiling goes substantially up
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  from there. So you know a little bit of uncertainty. But if there
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  was only one guy who was playable at a big ten level, you wouldn't
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  really have a question to be like, well, we know they always talk
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  about the best five I've if you don't know who your best five is,
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  that means assuming these guys you know, are playable You've got more than one
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  playable option. Yeah, do you I'm just thinking about this now. Do
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  you think it's telling that he didn't mention center as a job that is still
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  available? Well, yeah, just because they know it. I was trying
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  to parse out whether the center was part of the right side of the offensive
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  line or not. I mean, I know it's literally the center of the
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  offensive line. But when they talk about the right side of the offensive line,
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  are they talking about we feel good about left tackle and left guard and
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  we you know, everything to the middle and right of their or Well,
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  I do think they're connected because part of that right side might be part of
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  the center conversation. Yeah. Yeah. If I'm betting right now, I
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  think I would bet on Seph McLaughlin as the center, and then one of
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  the three names I just said as the right guard and Josh Frit's the right
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  tackle. This you know, they they would feel comfortable about Friar at right
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  guard, but it sounded like they were very happy with what he was doing
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  at right tackle, and they looked into the portal to see if they're where
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  is anybody there? Really not a lot of names in the portal post spring
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  as that anybody that pays attention knows, because there just weren't many guys,
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  and so they felt better about the advancement that the guys on the team were
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  making, especially compared to what was out there. And one final thing,
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  dougle Maurice did ask about the departure of Erin Dunston on campus recruiting coordinator for
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  Michigan for Ohio State, who then went up took a promotion at Michigan Day.
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  Was asked about it just because I'm sure people wonder, hey, did
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  you talk about it? And the answer is he said, just wanted to
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  talk about the people who are currently at Ohio State. So he was asked
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  about it, did not really have an answer, which is kind of what
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  you'd expect, but you have to ask. So that covers that. That's
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  sort of your update on the status of Ohio State football as we wrap up
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  the summer camp season and then now we're about to start heading into the end
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  of We're going about to wrap up the official visit season in about a week.
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  Then you have a recruiting commitment season coming soon could come very soon for
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  some guys, and you get into early July once guys wrap up their visits
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  tend to have a little bit of a wave of commitments. Then and then
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  we head to Big Ten Media Days in just over a month. Cannot wait
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  for that. Lots of big fun stuff planned for the now expanded three day
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  Big Ten Media Days. So if you want to have all sorts of access
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  to all sorts of coverage of all that fun stuff. Plus oh, yes,
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  there's a football season coming this fall. Hey, great place, dude,
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  That would be at bucke huddle dot com. That's where Tony, Kevin
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  and I covered the team, Mark covers recruiting. We had our whole team
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  of ex's nose gurus making you a smarter football fan all at Buckeye huddle dot
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  com. Lully a little bit for today. Thank you guys all for joining
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  us. Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow.