Latest / Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning / 3 Second-Year Buckeyes Who Could Make An Impact In 2024

Transcript

3 Second-Year Buckeyes Who Could Make An Impact In 2024 · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

• 0:00
  Welcome to buck Eyes tomorrow morning for Tuesday, January thirtieth. I'm your host,
• 0:03
  Tom or the Akron game in two hundred and fourteen days, the game
• 0:06
  against Michigan in three hundred and five days. There's some exciting news on the
• 0:11
  Ohio State football front coming a little bit later on on Tuesday. We're going
• 0:15
  to be talking to five of the Buckeyes transfers. Tony Gerderman will be there.
• 0:20
  Some big names there in addition to Tony Gerderman, of course, but
• 0:24
  Tony. This is sort of the first step towards the next college football season.
• 0:31
  Yeah, very much so. Getting to talk to Will Howard and Quinchwn
• 0:35
  Jadkins and Seth McLaughlin and tied into Will Coas Merrick and of course safety Caleb
• 0:40
  Downs. This will be our first opportunity to talk to any of them,
• 0:43
  to meet any of them, and we won't be talking necessarily about last season.
• 0:47
  We'll be talking about next season. Then this begins the process of so
• 0:52
  you know why Ohio State, what brought you here? What can you bring
• 0:54
  to Ohio States? Getting to know these guys, learn about them, and
• 1:00
  really, like you said, Tom, start to move on to the twenty
• 1:04
  twenty four season, because after this we'll then we'll have signing Day, We'll
• 1:07
  get to talk to some coaches, perhaps maybe some early enrollies we'll see,
• 1:12
  but yeah, this is the beginning and this will be the first look that
• 1:17
  anybody gets at the twenty twenty four team technically, and those are five of
• 1:21
  the six. The only true or the only transfer that we're not talking to
• 1:23
  on Tuesday is quarterback Julian say And, who is a true freshman, so
• 1:26
  we might get him if we get a true freshman a little later on.
• 1:30
  But those are certainly five guys who were not on the Ohis State football program
• 1:34
  and in the Ohistate football program in twenty twenty three who are expected to make
• 1:37
  a significant impact in twenty twenty four. Today we're gonna be talking about three
• 1:41
  other guys who were in the program last year, but they were true freshmen,
• 1:44
  and now entering your second year, the tendan may get a little closer
• 1:49
  to potentially making a pretty significant impact. And I'm going to tell you if
• 1:53
  you go back through some of the great teams in Ohio history, Ohio State
• 1:57
  history nineteen sixty eight was no as the Super Softs. It was second year
• 2:01
  players who were some of the biggest, most important players on that nineteen sixty
• 2:06
  eight team. Twenty fourteen, another pretty significant season in Ohio state football history,
• 2:12
  had second year players like e Iszekiel Elliott and Joey Bosa and others making
• 2:15
  a pretty significant impact. So the second year players really taking a, you
• 2:21
  know, the next step that is not unheard of in Ohio state football history.
• 2:24
  Today, Tony has written about a bunch of he's written about to d
• 2:28
  eight eight of them, three of them on offense, five on defense.
• 2:30
  Today we're gonna be talking about just three of the guys he's written about on
• 2:32
  offense who could be poised to sort of take another significant step. There's a
• 2:37
  bigger role this ball. We're gonna start with wide receiver Brandon innis Is regular
• 2:42
  season. He had one catch during the regular season. It was a pretty
• 2:45
  memorable one fifty eight yards for a touchdown against Purdue. Tony, he's one
• 2:49
  of those guys who we've been looking at at camp. You know, I
• 2:52
  think we watched him at camp in like twenty twenty maybe, I mean,
• 2:54
  you're twenty nineteen or twenty twenty one. It's been one of those years,
• 3:00
  those years with numbers, but he is. You know, he's been someone
• 3:02
  who has been a was a very very highly recruited player. He was also
• 3:07
  someone who looked at him and just kind of saw it immediately. We didn't
• 3:12
  get a chance to see a lot of it last year, but this year
• 3:15
  feels like a chance where you've got some openings in that wide receiver rotation.
• 3:19
  This could be a real opportunity for Brandonness to take a big step forward.
• 3:23
  Yeah, and Brandon played in a handful of games on offense and did a
• 3:27
  lot of special teams work as well this past season. But moving forward,
• 3:30
  if if you're assuming a Mecca Buka is moving from the slot to outside,
• 3:37
  but even if he doesn't, Xavier Johnson has moved on out of the slot,
• 3:39
  so he's out to the NFL. That was one of the people keeping
• 3:44
  Brandon Inis on the sideline. So the depth chart has gotten thinner, especially
• 3:49
  on the inside. And there is a scenario where Brandon Innis is You're starting
• 3:53
  slot receiver this year, depending on how they want to do it, and
• 3:55
  if they do move Mecca Buka outside, You've got Brandon Ennis, you got
• 4:00
  Bryson Rodgers as two guys who played in the slot last year, practiced in
• 4:04
  the slot, didn't play too much, but in his I know the expectations
• 4:10
  are very high. I think he was, by one of the services,
• 4:12
  the number one receiver in the twenty twenty three class. You mentioned his one
• 4:17
  catch fifty eight yard touchdown. The last Ohio State true freshman to have a
• 4:21
  fifty eight yard touchdown catch in his first catch David Boston in nineteen ninety six.
• 4:28
  Pretty good company. Pretty I'm just gonna assume they are the only two
• 4:32
  in it. I'll just I'm not going to do too much research on that
• 4:35
  one, but a ton of expectations very quick. Has some Jackson Smith and
• 4:41
  Jigbet to him, which I think will excite people as well. Yeah,
• 4:46
  he's one of those guys who, as soon as he was even on the
• 4:48
  radar for Ohios that you had people excited about what he could be when he
• 4:53
  got to Ohio State and was working with Brian Hartline and all that kind of
• 4:56
  stuff. And I don't feel like that's changed at all. I'm sure people
• 5:00
  wondering why aren't they talking about Colonel Tate. Well Tony hasn't written about Colonel
• 5:01
  Tate yet. We'll get there on some future show. There's plenty to be
• 5:05
  excited about there as well for the buck Eyes. But now let's move on
• 5:09
  to another potential receiving target that is tight ended. Jelanie Thurman. He's another
• 5:13
  guy who just a very unique skill set, a very I mean a very
• 5:17
  unique athlete, someone who might be able to bring some different things to the
• 5:21
  tight end position at Ohio State. He's not he's not a cave stover by
• 5:25
  any means, but he could be a really unique receiving threat for the Buckeyes
• 5:29
  this year. Big receiver, you know, six six, two fifty or
• 5:32
  so, and has incredible athleticism. I know from talking with Keenan Bailey this
• 5:39
  past spring. One of the things that he said was just the way he
• 5:43
  attacks the film room and the playbook off the field is as oppressive as anything
• 5:47
  he does on the field. And we saw him in practice time a couple
• 5:49
  of times where they're using him in the in the red zone and he was
• 5:54
  very effective. And he's played five games this year. One of the rare
• 5:59
  guys who started a game and also red shirted. He started the Cotton Bowl
• 6:02
  against Missouri, played like the first two snaps and that was it for him.
• 6:06
  But they wanted to open up in twelve personnel and obviously Kate's Dover being
• 6:11
  hurt, so he got that nod, But you know, as a potentially
• 6:17
  game changing type of tight end, who can do it all, who should
• 6:20
  be able to do it all, you know, he lost his black stripe
• 6:24
  really early, I think for tight ends at Ohio State. But it's still
• 6:30
  hard to expect too much from him this year, just because we see how
• 6:34
  developmental the position is at Ohio State. It's rare for a second year guy
• 6:40
  to come in and put up thirty catches or twenty five catches at tight end.
• 6:44
  Seems to be it's like year three, year four, year five when
• 6:46
  that sort of stuff happens. But I would say, I don't know that
• 6:49
  they' found anybody this talented in that position. And you're losing Kates Dover,
• 6:55
  so there's a bunch of catches there, but you're bringing in Will Casmeric from
• 6:59
  Ohio. You've got g Scott back for his fifth year. So it would
• 7:03
  be one thing if you didn't have the transfer and you didn't have G Scott
• 7:08
  that it would be like what kind of year can you get from Jelanni Thurman.
• 7:11
  This might be a pretty big year, but it also might be up
• 7:13
  and down. Now he's gonna have to earn everything agains, which means I
• 7:17
  think you'll see the snaps that he does get, he'll be more prepared for.
• 7:20
  He'll be better snaps. I just I'm wondering how much he'll get to
• 7:24
  play with the room being situated as it is. Well, they brought in
• 7:29
  Kasmeric very clearly to be the blocking tight end that that is sort of what
• 7:33
  he's known for at Ohio, and g Scott has obviously made the long,
• 7:39
  gradual, gradual, eventual transition from wide receiver to tight end sort of fully
• 7:43
  at this point, so you have another veteran guy in there. Derman feels
• 7:46
  like someone they're gonna They're not gonna be able to keep him off the field.
• 7:48
  He's gonna play some, but he's not necessarily going to be you know,
• 7:54
  they rely on that blocking at that tight end position a lot. He's
• 7:57
  probably not gonna be the best blocking option there. We'll see how he continue
• 8:00
  to develop. But Ianan Bailey has talked in the past about you have to
• 8:03
  be able to catch the ball like you're a big ten wide receiver, and
• 8:05
  you have to be able to block defensive ends or flitzing linebackers or whoever it
• 8:11
  is, like you're a big ten offensive lineman. Those are two very different
• 8:15
  skill sets. You got to kind of balance both of those. There's a
• 8:18
  lot of technique got to learn, there's a lot of just physical development You've
• 8:20
  got to have to sort of build up to be able to do both of
• 8:24
  those things. So that is one of those reasons where you don't necessarily see
• 8:28
  the huge second season out of a tight end that is a little bit more
• 8:31
  of a developmental position a lot like offensive line. So yeah, I'm with
• 8:37
  you. I don't think you're seeing thirty five receptions for Jolanni Thurman this ball,
• 8:39
  but I think you're going to see enough that you're going to have Ohio
• 8:43
  State fans being very very excited about Jolanni Thurman for twenty twenty five and beyond.
• 8:48
  The last guy I wanted to talk to you about Tony Luke Montgomery.
• 8:50
  He's another guy who came in with some real serious recruiting bona fides. And
• 8:56
  you know, offensive line is another one of these spots where you just you're
• 8:58
  not going to play a lot as a true freshman. But Luke Montgomery was
• 9:03
  out there quite a bit for a true freshman offensive lineman, and it feels
• 9:07
  like he you know, there's some uncertainty on that offensive line, but there's
• 9:11
  a lot of those sort of projected offensive line lineups for this fall that involved
• 9:16
  Luke Montgomery playing a pretty significant role. Yeah, there is a job opening
• 9:22
  on the right side of the offensive line with the departure of Matt Jones,
• 9:26
  the right guard. So you have a you have your right tackle, Josh
• 9:30
  Fryar returning, but would he be better at right guard and would that allow
• 9:35
  for Luke Montgomery to step in at right tackle or is Josh Fryer a better
• 9:39
  right tackle than Luke Montgomery and Taker Shabala is a better right guard, then
• 9:46
  Luke Montgomery is the right tackle. He started. Like the first half of
• 9:48
  last year, Luke Mountgomery played the sixth most snaps. He was basically the
• 9:54
  sixth man on the offensive line, would come in on the Bison package as
• 9:58
  an extra blocker. But as the season went on, you saw you he
• 10:03
  getting more snaps and even Tager Shabola got snaps as the extra offensive lineman in
• 10:07
  the cotton ball instead of Luke Montgomery. So I don't know if I think
• 10:11
  it wouldn't be outside of the realm of possibility if the freshman wall is being
• 10:16
  hit a little bit by the end of the season, but he was still
• 10:18
  playing, and he still played in just about every game last year, and
• 10:22
  I do think that he is. He may have been the seventh man by
• 10:28
  the end of the season last year. I think he's got a really good
• 10:31
  shot to be one of the top five guys. And it's just a matter
• 10:33
  of how well does the right side of that line shakeout. Do they go
• 10:39
  and get somebody in the portal this spring, and like I said, is
• 10:43
  it it comes down to basically like a three man race. If they don't
• 10:46
  get anybody, it's basically like a three man race in my opinion of which
• 10:52
  which of these two of these three make them better with Josh Briar, Luke
• 10:56
  Montgomery, Tager Shabola And if you want to throw Zen Mahalsky in there as
• 10:58
  well, go ahead. But it's just what's the best combination of those three
• 11:03
  in whichever two spots. And maybe that means Josh Fryar at right tackle,
• 11:07
  Luke Montgomery at right guard, or Takerson Ball at right guard and Luke Montgomery
• 11:11
  at right tackle. I think maybe that would be the odd man out because
• 11:13
  whereas Josh Fryer in that alignment. So plenty of stuff that still needs to
• 11:18
  be worked out. We'll see what they do this spring. If it's going
• 11:22
  to be a situation where they only want Luke Montgomery playing at right tackle so
• 11:26
  that he can get as much experience there, and then in the fall camp
• 11:31
  they need to move around, they'll do that as they look for their best
• 11:33
  five. But I think he's he's gonna be five or six this year in
• 11:37
  my opinion. Yeah, certainly in the middle of that offensive line picture heading
• 11:43
  into the spring. We'll see where the spring takes him. But boy,
• 11:46
  we are officially really today turning the page did the twenty twenty four seasons,
• 11:50
  starting starting to get to know some of those new and the new transfers.
• 11:54
  We'll hopefully get to talk to the early enrollies in about a week or so,
• 11:58
  and then, boy, you're starting to head into spring football not too
• 12:01
  long away from there, Son, Plenty to be talk about, plenty to
• 12:05
  be excited about around o Highest Hit Football. If you want to hear a
• 12:07
  little bit about Michigan football, Tony and I dropped a episode of The Buckeye
• 12:11
  Weekly podcast talking about the hire of Sharon Moore, departure of Jesse Minter and
• 12:16
  others, and boy, it's gonna be a it's gonna be a fascinating season,
• 12:20
  maybe in a slightly different way. Up and in Arbor. You can
• 12:24
  talk talk with us about both of those things and whatever else you want to
• 12:26
  at Buckeye Huddle dot com. Lots of coverage of the team, lots of
• 12:31
  coverage of recruiting x's and o's, and a very lively and active board all
• 12:35
  at buckey Huddle dot com. We hope to see you there and hope to
• 12:39
  also see you on our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Buckeye Huddle.
• 12:41
  If you're watching there, hit the thumbs up on this video, leave us
• 12:45
  a comment if you like, and also make sure you're subscribed. You hit
• 12:48
  the bell so you get notified when we do post go live with stuff.
• 12:52
  You will have live interviews a little later on on the day on Tuesday,
• 12:56
  maybe a little bit of a live show as well from the Woody and much
• 12:58
  more, all at YouTube dot com slash Buckeye Huddle. That will do it
• 13:01
  for today. I thank you guys all for joining us. Have a great
• 13:03
  day. We will talk to you tomorrow