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5 Things We Learned Inside Ohio State Spring Football Practice · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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Welcome to a very very, very very special live edition at Buckeyees tomorrow morning
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for Wednesday, March sixth. I'm your host, tom Or. The Acron
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game in one hundred and seventy eight days, the game begains to Michigan in
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two hundred and sixty nine days. The start of spring practice was on Tuesday.
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We are coming to you live from inside the What He Hates Athletic Center,
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where we just got to watch some of Ohio State's first practice in the
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spring. Got to talk to Ryan Day, got to talk to Jim Kelly.
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This is gonna be a relatively short We're gonna keep this to a kind
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of normal morning show length. And Tony and I'll probably take a much deeper
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dive on an episode of Buckey Weekly that comes up a little later on on
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Tuesday evening. But Tony, I guess let's first just start with it.
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Sure is nice to be back in here. I'm watching football again. It
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is nice to get in here and everybody's stretching and just the and can we
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say the weather spectacular even though they practiced inside, it was just nice and
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perfect. This is to me. I don't care what their gregorians say I
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don't care what Julius Caesar says. This is the official first day of spring.
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It does kind of feel like the first day of spring. It's like,
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okay, you know, you know, this process ends with a spring
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game, and the spring game is usually at least, you know, sixty
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ish degrees, and sometimes it's sunny and sometimes it's randy. But it also
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is sort of the the first day of spring. It is the first day
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of football. Really, you know, we kind of we this. The
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calendar changes, and it's always kind of where does it Where does last year
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start? Where does this year really begin? There's an argument that this is
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sort of where this year begins with. Okay, now you got everyone out
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on the field, you got everyone together, you got the new coaches,
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you get the new players, you got the transfers. It's all all kind
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of out there, and there is just so much to see, so much
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to look at, and you know we're only in here for you know what,
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forty five minutes or something like that. So I told you, I
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think I took as many pictures in those forty five minutes as I do during
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a typical, like full football game, because I'm just like, oh,
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there's there's this guy, you got that new guy. There's just so much
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stuff to go on that's going on. I guess let's start with let's say,
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well, yeah, it's just like I have seventy four things we can
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talk about. Let's pick three. Let's start within the first thing you said
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you noticed when you walked in, you were looking what you're you were looking
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for? Okay, where is this one particular player and you found him and
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it was not in the place that he was right the very at the end
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of last season exactly. And you go through the double doors, and the
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first thing I'm looking for is, Okay, where the position groups? Good,
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they're lining up in their position groups, Where are the linebackers, where
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are the safeties? And where is sunny styles? And so I didn't see
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him really with either group initially. Then then I turned and saw the number
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six jersey with the linebackers, as we had sort of been anticipating. And
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then when you see the roster this morning that he's listened at six four two
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thirty five, you're like, we can do the math in that one.
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But this is something we talked to Ryan Day a month ago about and said,
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yeah, there are conversations going on, and you know, the conversations
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I obviously went well, and so as Ryan Day said he's going to be
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involved there linebacker, but then also said when I asked him about he said,
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but there'll be more things for him coming down the line. And Tom.
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I don't want to read too much into that, but will Mark Gibler
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get his wish of having sunny styles at the jack position at some point?
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Oh season, I was going to transition right into our quarterback conversation there,
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but no, said, probably not quarterback. Okay, yeah, could be
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jack, you know, could be safety, could be punter, as Kevin
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Section suggests from behind the camera, though they had a six ft seven and
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forty five pound punter from Australia on hand today on a recruiting visit, I
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believe. So. I don't want to look ahead to the twenty twenty five
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or twenty twenty six seasons. However, this you could legitimately go, that's
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not a punter, This is a punt. It's a punter. Yes,
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come on, yes, they do have another story. Just before you quit
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on the twenty twenty four four season, they do have an Australian punter on
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the roster. Joe McGuire, he's there. Jesse Murco transferred to Vanderbilt,
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so he's no longer in Columbus. But lots about guys are, including five
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scholarship quarterbacks, and I think there's a lot of just kind of interest in
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just the logistics of having five scholarship quarterbacks because none of them have really a
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significant number of game reps. I don't think any of them have one hundred
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snaps yet as an Ohio State quarterback during a game, Will Howard because he
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was playing at Kansas State, Devin Brown because he got hurt a couple of
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times, Lincoln keen Holds because he was a true freshman last year, and
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Julian saying, and Erin Nolan because they just got here. So that's a
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lot of talent, that's a lot of promise, that's a lot of intrigue.
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It's also a lot of guys that they've got to got to kind of
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got to go through. So how were they work on the quarterbacks on day
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one? It was interesting because when they first started, they were doing some
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accrecy joyells throwing into a net and it would be each guy got free free
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throws and then they just go again. Devin Brown started first, then Will
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Howard, then Lincoln Keenhols, then Julian's say, and then Aaron Nolan.
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And later on during some drills they're repping in that same order, but when
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it would come time for one of the freshmen, one of the veterans would
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then step in first. So you go go like Devin Brown, Will Howard,
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Lincoln Keyholes and then Devin Brown again, and then Julian's saying, and
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then Will Howard and then Aaron Nolan. Just getting the veterans more reps and
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right is and they went one hundred and fifty reps with the quarterbacks today,
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so they got a bunch of good work in. They'll eventually pair that down
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once they get the pads on and things are moving a little bit slower,
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but you want to get as many guys as many reps as possible. And
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then when things start to get maybe later on in spring and you start to
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see some distancing, you you know, you skew things, but they're already
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skewing things a little, but still getting the freshmen a ton of reps.
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Yeah, and I think they you know, you have to make sure guys
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are feeling like you know, they came in and you you know they I
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think everyone has sort of been told nothing's promised. You're coming in with a
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chance to feed for the job. If if they true freshman happens to emerge
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from the quarterback room, I don't think it's real likely, but if a
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true freshman emergers from the quarterback room, you could theoretically have a true freshman
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quarterback. So you know, you want to give those guys those chances.
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And Ryande talked about the first quarter of the spring, so like the first
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couple of weeks of practice, you're going to kind of just do everything and
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then it might sort of resolve itself a little bit and go from there.
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But yeah, there was some new new faces in the quarterback room. New
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faces in the running back room. Got Quinn Shawn Jenkins, got Sam Williams,
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Dixon, got James People's There was a drill where Aaron Noland was kind
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of like the fourth quarterbacks were off thrown to wide receivers and Aaron Rowland was
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throwing just kind of like wheel routes to running backs. Smart undefeated, remaining
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undefeated. You're you're just sort of getting a chance to see some of these
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guys just doing a little bit of stuff here and there, and it's like,
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you just it's always it's always interesting to me to just see exactly how
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automatic it is, you know. It's just there was there was one where
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I think it was a thrown to doll and Hayden. It was like I
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have a picture of it and it's like going off his fingertips and that was
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the one that got dropped and it was like, you know, a twenty
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yard out. It just is a really good perspective on just how good these
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guys are that, you know, if there's no one there, it is
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just automatic. Yeah, And watching the initial drills where we're throwing into a
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net, basically I'm shooting it. And at least I thought I was shooting
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it. Tom, I was on my phone. Did you pull a Kevin
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Noon? Well, no, I didn't. I didn't double hit it.
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I just didn't hit it enough the first time. Show. No, I
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did not end on show. We're not here talking about live shows anyway.
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But Aaron Nolan like three straight bull's eyes. I'm like, oh, this
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is good stuff. And I'm just still continuing to look at my screen and
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watching the other quarterbacks. This is good stuff. And then I realized,
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oh well, let me hit record, and then he did it. Essentially
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did it again I saw and then you saw him over here throwing the wheel
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routes and he was just to a spot and looked he was tom He was
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the most accurate quarterback that I saw today. But again, we did not
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get to see many quarterbacks throw, you like, we didn't get to see
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a bunch of things like the throwing into that they were fifteen yards away from
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so it's like, come on then, you know, do you do a
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little run around and throw it fifteen yards away? Then they were thrown to
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some receivers maybe fifteen yards away on some routes. So but still, it
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was just good to see five guys out there. You know, chip Kelly
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getting getting his hands full right now with five quarterbacks to deal with, and
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you know that's five quarterbacks to deal with is a lot, but he is
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out there on the field trying to add more players to his side of the
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ball. I had pictures. I threw a couple of pictures up on the
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huddle board at buck a huddle dot com for our members on Tuesday morning,
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and it was a picture of Chip Kelly talking to Tim Walton and then Caleb
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Downs walks over and I said, you know, in my head, this
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conversation is Chip Kelly going, hey, we could really use a guy like
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you on the offense. And then Chip Kelly during the press conference afterwards said
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essentially the conversation was more or less, hey we could use a guy like
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you on offense. Yeah, And he said he does that a lot where
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you just and there's warm ups, you're looking at the defensive guys that you
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could use on offense. But then he also said, go look at Caleb
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Caleb Downs high school highlights and you'll see what kind of offensive player he was.
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But it was funny watching that live because it's just like he was giving
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Caleb Downs some grief and you know, just the interactions that are going on
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because I saw, you know, Mickey Muradi talking to Caleb Down, such
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Tim Walton talking to Caleb Down. So I thought it was interesting that,
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oh, Chip Kelly is also over there talking to him, and that kind
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of you know, just that kind of relationship that has been building through through
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winter workouts continues now. And he he was with the Ones and he was
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the only he may have been the only transfer with the Ones. I did
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not get to see the tight ends, but he seems to have fallen in
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mind really really quickly. Yeah, and you know, most of the most
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of the transfer you would sort of us zoom. You know, Will Howard
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comes in even though he started a couple of years at Kansas State, he's
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still kind of figuring out, like, Okay, here's how we run practice,
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and so you're not necessarily gonna be the first one through. Caleb Downs
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obviously quite talented, very smart player. Not a shock that he'd be the
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first one through. But part of that is also the other guy who'd be
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at that position. Malie Hartford is out for the spring, so you know
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at that point who else would go first? Essentially, But let's run through
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real quick the names guys. None of these are season ending injuries, injuries
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expected to even impact the season. But run through the list of guys who
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we know are going to be out for the spring. Oh, you're gonna
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put this on me. Miles Walker offensive line, we read shirt freshman Court
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Williams out for the spring, Malie Cartford and Tom That is where there's two
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more. I wrote them all down. Cyton on his foot, the thing
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is hell and Bryce West Glennville corner. Now he was they were he was
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working, he was warming up, but obviously none of the physical stuff.
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I guess he won't be involved in that. But again, like you said,
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nothing long term, and that there's always something in the spring, and
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they're always very cautious in the spring because there's no reason not to be right.
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This spring is important, but the spring is also a chance where you
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know, it's It's like when you're playing Akron or someone like that, if
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you don't you know, if a guy's in not one hundred percent, you
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sit them because it doesn't really matter. This is the same kind of thing
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like, yeah, the Acron game matters, but also not nearly as much
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as a gas other stuff. Later, just looking through the the defense,
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looking through the offense, was there anything that really jumped out to you?
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Like we have had game we've had, we've had the first practice of the
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spring where you see, you know, hey, oh, justin field just
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throws a different ball than other people. Garrett Wilson comes out of those breaks
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more explosively than other guys do. I think it was It was hard to
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tell it was on the other side of the field, but I think there
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were a couple of times that I looked at what I think was Jeremiah Smith
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and kind of went, oh, yeah, that guy catches a lot of
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balls that you wouldn't necessarily expect on the receivers to catch. Yeah, that
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was what That was what I was gonna mention is. And I didn't see
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it live at the time. I threw some video on Twitter of some pass
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plays and somebody said twenty two seconds Jeremiah Smith, check it out, and
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so I did. And it's like they're just throwing on air, except sometimes
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there's a little. There's not a little, there's like a coach or a
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staffer that gets in the way. And that was one of the throws and
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Stafford was right there and Jeremiah Smith picks it up like off of his shoes,
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like it's a very low throw, picks it up off his shoes and
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just turns and runs down the sideline like you're not supposed to catch those.
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He did, and everybody talks about what he can do after the catcher,
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just his frame and everything. He's listening to six three two fifteen on the
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roster, big guy. Yeah, catching catching, you know, shoe top
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passes. So that's quite a catch. Radius time from shoetops to the tree
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tops. Yeah. And you know, as we will probably say a bunch
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of times this spring, relax, pump the brakes, don't necessarily engrave the
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Heisman Trophy just yet. Day one is always much more about Okay, let's
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just get sort of a data point on where guys are, where guys are
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repping. Who did you watch the offensive line? And yeah, I did.
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I did so like Seth McLaughlin and Carson Hinsman, and I know Luke
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Montgomery was out there with the ones at one point. What did you see
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with the offensive line? So the first line was left to right, it's
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Josh Simmons, Donovan Jackson, Carson Hinsman with the ones, Luke Montgomery for
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the right guard at Josh Fryart right tackle. Second line was Zen Maholski at
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left guard, and in Austin Siraveld, Seth McLaughlan and Enoch from Ahi and
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then Tager Shaball at right tackle. There you got very impressive. Yeah,
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and and I think that's one where you know, I would sort of assume
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someone like Seth McLachlan coming in as a transfer that that's I think that's great
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news that Carson Hinson's with the one. Ryan Dage asked, I think at
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one point about Carson in some of his issues in December, it sounded like
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he's had a great interim period between the stuff that didn't go well in December
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and the Cotton Bow where he didn't play and now, so that's all very
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positive. You want position battles, you want you want guys who if there's
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not if you are not one hundred percent locked in with, like you know,
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a second year of c J. Stroud, Like, yeah, it's
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going to be c J Stroud because SUDJ Scroud. If you don't have that
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level of confidence in someone, a positional battle is not a bad thing.
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It feels like they have two potentially very good solid options at center, which
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you can't play two centers at the same time, but you could play one
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of them at guard potentially. Yeah, And I think they they kind of
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got what they wanted out of Carson Hintsman in the offseason because you weren't sure
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how he would respond to essentially getting benched, but he's responded in a correct
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way. And then you know, you tweet out or you see the reports
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out about you know, Carson Hinsman with the first team after practice, and
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then people like where's where's Seth McLaughlan, And it's like, this is this
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is literally practice well of spring. So there's there's plenty of time there.
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Nothing is written in anything at this point, and so yeah, it's gonna
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be interesting to watch that battle. This is you know, most transfers,
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I think even Jonah Jackson, I'm sure he did. Jonah Jackson started with
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the second or third team. He came in in June. Josh Simmons last
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year, his first reps were worth a third team in August. So like,
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there's it's so early, this being the first practice of spring, and
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I think we'll see some fluctuation there and plenty of reps for those because as
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Ryan Day said, they've got so many guys now they can run through three
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different units and get guys going. Yeah, And so they'll be running through
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a bunch of those guys in the coming days, coming weeks. Thinking back
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to previous first days of spring ball, I was looking, I was thinking
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about, you know, the Justin Fields year and the Garrett Wilson year.
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It came up as a memory on my phone, like this date in the
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past and it was the first practice of the twenty twenty season, and it
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was like, oh boy, speaking of not knowing what's coming. Uh,
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you know, you never know what's you never hear it's coming. We're pretty
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sure they're going to be practicing here again on Thursday, and then what do
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you do? And then after spring break week they'll be back after that as
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well. But it is uh, yeah, I definitely practice one. You
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never want to read too much into it, but you do want to,
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you know. It's it's always a really good useful point to then when we're
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back in here three weeks from now. Okay, hey, this has changed.
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That has changed. These guys are going and working in different position groups
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or whatever. That's where the real value from this comes in. And you
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know, I mean this was this was a really I think a very uh
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you know, it was it was the first day of spring. Vibes were
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real strong, where everyone was sort of happy everything, you know, and
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Ryan Days, Ryan Day. We got to listen to a little bit to
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Ryan Day's pre practice speech, and his pre practice speech was all about you
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know, all the stuff that you know, Yeah, it's a real talented
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team. What's going to determine how this goes is all the stuff that doesn't
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require talent. Yeah, and that was a message from Chip Kelly as well,
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the no talent stuff, that the effort to discipline things like that,
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and just the working hard aspect of it where anybody can do it. You
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don't need to be six three two fifteen Jeremiah Smith. You can be anybody.
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And you know, it's kind of like shooting in basketball. Anybody can
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do it. You don't have to be anything special. And so that's what
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is going to separate the teams, because as the coaches said, everybody has
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talent. And so yeah, practice one time. As I wrote in the
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practice report, this is just a baseline. It is not a tagline.
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It's just one one practice and then you we'll judge what we see from here
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on out, you know, with remembering where we were at the start of
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things and who's growing, who has changed, who has switched, who has
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made some move. So that's why that's my favorite part about this practice because
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you don't get to see much. There are no pads. As Ryan Day
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said, it's you know, you can't even judge anything on the offensive line
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right now because there are no pads. But you get a good idea of
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where things start out at so that you can track where they're moving. Well,
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we will be tracking where things are moving, letting you know where things
18:00
started out, and much more all at buckey Huddle dot com. That's where
18:03
Tony Kevin and I cover the team. Mark covers recruiting a bunch of recruits
18:06
here on Tuesday as well, so we probably have some news on that front
18:10
in the coming days, plenty of schematic talk with Chip Kelly's. We'll have
18:14
our ex's and nose guys breaking that all down for you at bucke Huddle dot
18:17
com. We'll also have much more coverage coming up on our YouTube channel,
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fun times of the year. Spring football is here in Columbus, Ohio.
18:49
Hooray. We're excited. Hope you are too. Thank you guys all for
18:52
joining us. Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow