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Why Ohio State Pro Day Could Tell Us A Lot About The 2024 Quarterback Battle · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Wednesday, March twentieth. I'm your host,
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  tom Or the Akron game in one hundred and sixty five days. The game
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  gets Michigan in two hundred and fifty five days. All right, joined by
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  Tony Gritterman here at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center. We are going to be
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  talking about Pro Day, which is something that's going to be happening on Wednesday
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  at the Woody Hayes Athletics Center. Tony, I guess, let's first of
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  all start with Okay, it's Pro Day. It's guys getting ready for their
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  NFL careers. They just had the NFL Combine. What the heck? What
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  do they need to do? The separate thing? Well, because not everybody
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  gets invited to the combine, but also this gives players an opportunity to basically
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  operate in friendly confines, a place they're used to. Gives them an opportunity
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  to improve numbers or post numbers for the first time because you're seeing fewer and
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  fewer people doing it at the combine. This gives them an opportunity to catch
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  passes from their people they know and a place they're familiar with. We'ren on
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  turf that they're always running on, and just it's like working from home,
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  Tom, It's always better than working in the office. I did like the
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  fact that you said the friendly confines. I'm like, no, no,
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  no, they'll they'll be working there later this fall when they play at Wrigley
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  Field. That's a whole different, whole different thing. I guess let's start
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  with you know, we're here every year for this. This is something that
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  I think people maybe see little snippets of our little clips of run people through
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  how this day is organized, Like what does the day look like to you
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  know, where do they start, what are they doing? Where are people
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  all that kind of stuff. Well, you've got family is here watching as
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  well, and so they're on the sidelines on this sideline, that sideline behind
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  us. We'll all be over there. We'll be in the far corner over
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  there, a little bit off to here, with some family members behind us
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  and in front of us. All of the football people and personnel beyond the
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  field. A lot of them are in the way. We're trying to watch.
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  But you'll have groups like our back in the weight room doing a bench
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  press. You'll have some groups out here, just very going through the various
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  drills, and they'll go position by position doing the drills, and you get
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  everybody with their stop watches and all of that, and so you're trying to
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  watch something through at an angle because it's happening over there. We're over there,
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  So you're trying to watch it through, uh, through bodies, dozens
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  of bodies, dozens of big bodies. And then you know, you try
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  to get some feedback from people afterwards, you ask people what they did.
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  But it's it's a pretty chaotic thing and it's run by Mickey Muradi and he's
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  got everything under control and he's been doing this forever, so this is nothing
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  new for them, and they prepare the players, Okay, this is what's
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  what you're gonna be going through, so they'll have like a dry run on
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  what they're doing and what's going to happen. That's another thing that allows the
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  players to be more comfortable is that this is nothing of this is new,
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  even though this is your pro day, right and this is yeah, this
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  is your this is your pro day. You're only gonna have one of them,
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  but you can do. Hey, you're gonna be lifting this bar in
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  this spot this for you with this amount of weight, and you can practice
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  it and practice and practice it to be, you know, to get ready.
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  We have seen there's no one out here today, but we have seen
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  Ohio State NFL Draft prospects, I mean Steel Chambers without here working on this
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  turf, working to get ready for the stuff that he's going to be doing
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  at pro day. One thing that I think people might not understand is,
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  you know, if you watch the combine on TV, Hey, there's the
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  players running and the time's right on the screen, and you have everything in
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  Okay, hey, this guy did this. You know, here's the rank
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  of all the guys if he did their bench press and all that kind of
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  stuff. The ben tress happens in the weight room, which is behind a
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  wall over there. We don't get to see it. So sometimes you find
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  out how many reps a guy did. Sometimes you don't. Usually that's the
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  likelihood of finding out how a guy did generally corresponds with how well the guy
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  felt he did. But you know, when they're running the forty, you
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  can stand there and you have your stopwatch or you have the stopwatch app on
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  your phone, and it's like, well, you know, I'm off,
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  I'm going to be this time is going to be accurate within zero point one
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  five seconds. Well, that's the difference between your first round draft pick and
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  a six round draft pick for a lot of these positions. So it's kind
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  of an it's just an unusual event because it's all happening and you can see
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  some of it and some of it you can't see. And even the stuff
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  you see is kind of like, well, I think I saw what I
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  saw. But yeah, that's just funny watching guys trying to time on the
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  stopwatch from fifty yards away at an angle from both the start and the finish.
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  I do it just as a joke, and it'll be between three seven
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  and five seven fastest guy. Or you can't draft a five side and running
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  back Tom Well, I mean you can, but the Browns would. But
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  no, it's then you, as you said, afterwards, you try to
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  ask, hey, so how'd you do? And you know, sometimes you
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  get the answer like, oh I did I didn't ask, Oh you didn't
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  ask how you did? I don't want to be I don't. I didn't
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  want to seem too interested in the job because they might. You know,
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  you got to you gotta be smart. With your salary and yeah, yeah,
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  one thing they don't seem too eager, That's exactly right. One thing
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  you can glean something from is, you know, the stuff that looks much
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  more like football than just like the Hey, the guy's running the three cone
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  drill or whatever. You know. When I think back to pro days,
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  I think of a lot of times when I'm watching guys run forties with four
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  people in front of me, you know, Chicago Bears head coach down in
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  front like hey, you. But one thing I do always think about is,
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  hey, Dwayne Haskins prode, Watching Dwayne Haskins throw on Prode, watching
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  Justin Field's throw on protey, watching CJ. Stroud throw on Pro Day.
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  A lot of times the quarterback is one of the most interesting. The quarterback
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  throwing to the wide receivers. Can he make all of the throws a hiss.
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  Date doesn't have a quarterback who's in the in the draft this year.
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  They do have a wide receiver of some renowned who's going to be in the
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  wide receiver in the working out to whatever degree he's working out, because he
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  didn't work out really at all in Indianapolis. I'm guessing we're going to see
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  a bunch of Marvin Harrison and Ryan Day on Tuesday said it's gonna be Will
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  Howard and Devin Brown throwing to the wide receivers. That's gonna be you know,
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  I think that's going to be interesting to watch Marvin Harrison one last time
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  in here. But also you get a little sneak peak at maybe the quarterback
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  competition. Yeah, and I honestly don't know that Marvin Harrison is gonna do
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  anything. I'm honestly you know, yeah, maybe not. Yeah, And
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  you might see Malik Neighbors move past him and on some draft boards because of
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  that LSU receiver. But with Devin Brown and Will Howard throwing to Xavier Johnson,
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  Cade Stover, Mian Williams, those those guys, I think that'll be
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  an interesting opportunity for us to watch the quarterbacks in that realm. But you
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  know, over the years, I've seen Cardile Jones throw when he was years
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  you know, a couple of years past. I think I've seen Troy Smith
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  throw here. One year Brian Hartline was running routes for the quarterbacks. Because
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  I remember that one, Yeah, I remember that one. And because you
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  had that probably would have been twenty eighteen. Maybe because you had the receivers
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  all laughing and running routes and things like that, having a good time.
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  So sometimes you piecemeal it and you also have it. Won't you be a
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  higher state guys here. Sometimes you'll have small college local players here, so
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  yeah, come on over, let people get a look at you. Sometimes
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  you have guys who, like Zach Born was like, you know what,
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  I'm gonna be a long snapper for a little bit and do some long snapping.
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  Try to show that because you may not have a position, this is
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  an opportunity if you can become a long snapper in the NFL time. It's
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  not like a lot like being a long or left handed reliever, like you
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  can do that for a long time and make good money. So there are
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  these little things that also happened. But afterwards it is a complete madhouse.
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  You're trying to grab people sometimes because there's no organization to it in terms of
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  can you talk to anybody, You just have to grab them. Last year,
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  I'd got to talk to Marvin Arrison Senior about Kyle McCord. So you
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  never know who's gonna show up, and you just you try to get as
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  much as you can and like I said, you can ask somebody about their
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  forty and if they ran a four to nine and they should have been a
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  four to seven, they're gonna be like, yeah, I don't know,
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  I don't I don't remember. You do get. One of the things that's
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  cool is you mentioned the guys from the smaller colleges, like I remember,
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  you know wide receiver from Capitol in here one year doing stuff for Otterbuye or
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  whatever. These are guys who played Division III who you know, didn't you
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  know, are not exactly on the Ohio State level of exposure to the NFL,
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  and you generally have if it's not every single NFL team, it's virtually
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  every NFL team in here because Ohio State always turns out draftable players. So
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  you get weird things like the year Brady Hoke was a an analyst for someone.
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  Brady Hok is in the Ohio State football facility. I'm not expecting the
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  San Diego Chargers head coach to make the trip to Columbus, but there's always
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  a possibility, and you get some real it's a real, like strange bedfellows
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  kind of event because it's like, oh boy, this person would not have
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  been very welcome in this facility, not all that long ago. Yeah,
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  that is actually a good question. We should ask Jerry Emig for the guys
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  list and see, I'm not expecting that Jim Harbott, you be here.
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  But it is also interesting to just see all of these people that like,
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  very prominent people in the NFL just walking past, and you know, standing
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  shoulder to shoulder with Mike Tomlin or whatever. And there's a GM over there,
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  and that's Mike Mayock before he got fired through terrible drafting with the Raiders.
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  You know, all of these famous people terrible drafting with the Raiders.
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  I have never heard such a job qualification, isn't it. So we will
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  be back here on Wednesday covering pro Day, given the you know, the
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  sort of the last hurrah for a bunch of former buck Eyes as they head
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  off to the NFL. Also, as we said, you get to see
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  some of the current buck Eyes that the you know, if we do get
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  to see Will Howard and Devin Brown throwing like running through the route progression,
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  the route tree, that's gonna be one of the most interesting things we get
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  to see all spring. So that'll be that'll be definitely something to watch on
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  Wednesday at buckeyehuddle dot com and YouTube dot com slash Buckeyehuddle, and then of
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  course we'll be back here on Thursday for more Ohio State player interviews, lots
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  of news, lots of stuff happening. You can make sure you check us
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  out. If you want to support our work and what we do, you
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  can find us at Buckeye huddle dot com. Sign up to become a member.
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  fun and active community on the huddle Board presented by Jeff Ruby Steakhouse. That
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  is all at buckeyehuddle dot com. That'll do it for today. Thank you
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  guys all for joining us. Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow.