COLUMBUS, Ohio -- On this episode of Buckeye Talk, Stephen Means, Nathan Baird and Andrew discuss Ohio State football’s tight and defensive line positions.
They highlight the different vibes from the defensive line coach and the tight ends coach when discussing their position groups. While one group seems to be confident about its options heading into a 2024 season where OSU could play as many as 17 games, the other is still trying to figure out how to replace the production of a two-year starter, who’s off to the NFL.
Thanks for listening to Buckeye Talk.
Latest Ohio State Buckeyes news
Read the automated transcript of today’s podcast below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it may contain errors and misspellings.
Stephen Means (00:05.192)
Welcome back to Buckeye Talk. I’m Stephen Means, that’s Nathan Barrett, and that’s Andrew Gillis, and this is your Wednesday Buckeye Talk. On Tuesday, we were back in the Woody for Ohio State’s sixth practice of the spring, and we talked with Keenan Bailey, the Titans coach. We talked with defensive line coach Larry Johnson, and we were supposed to talk with running backs coach Tony Alford, but he decided he didn’t wanna live in Columbus anymore. He’d rather live in Ann Arbor. So that’s one name we had to cross off of the list. So not the most, not the biggest list of people to talk to.
Nathan and Andrew, but obviously we’re supposed to get a bigger list of players for Thursday. But I do think how this kind of shaped out is it’s interesting to groups that we got to talk to. Right. And it felt like the vibes of which they talked about the position group were very, very different with Larry Johnson. It’s like, Hey, do you have depth? And he’s like, yeah, I’ve got a lot of depth. While with Keenan Bailey, it’s like, Hey, do you have a starter and depth? And he’s like, well, we’ll see. That’s the kind of vibe I got from these two head, these two assistant coaches, the way they were talking.
Nathan, is that the kind of vibe you were getting from Keenan Bailey and Larry Johnson about the way they talked about their position groups?
Nathan Baird (01:08.262)
Well, I mean, on one side you have a position group that 80% of the NFL ready players decided to come back. And on the other side, 100% of the NFL ready players left. So that’s how it should be right now. They are in different places. One is in a more transitional place, probably. And...
That’s not a knock against someone like G Scott, who’s obviously the hole over here. And it’s not a knock against where Johnny Thurman is at this point, but you have a group with the transfer coming in and Wilcas Marek and like, where does all of that shake out? How do those, how does that look in games this fall? What does it even look like in games, maybe especially this year, depending on what Ryan Day and Chip Kelly wanna do? Like there’s a lot of unknowns there. Whereas on the defensive side of the ball,
This is just a continuation or the foundation in some ways of the.
similarities, like the stability that they are carrying over from last year to this year. It is exemplified with what this defensive line group is.
Stephen Means (02:22.784)
So Andrew, let’s start on the defensive thought with the defensive line. Obviously last year, JT Twiemoloau led all defensive linemen with snaps. He had 677, Ty Leake Williams was second in first amongst interior guys. He had 645 and then Jack Sawyer, 610. Those are the three guys who played at least 600 snaps last season. And then obviously Michael Hall Jr. 413, maybe would have played more if it not worth it for some injuries than Ty Hamilton, 350. Kenyatta Jackson and Kaden.
Curry played 174, 165. As you can see, it’s a significant drop off. And there were even some games earlier in the year, like the Notre Dame game, where we didn’t see any of the edge rushers other than Jack and JT for that entire game. In fact, I have, just to point out some of these numbers here, starting with the edge rushers, if you add up Kenyatta Jackson, Kaden Curry, Mitchell Melton, Namari Abor, who of course is no longer here, and Joshua Mickens’ total snaps last year, it’s 432. So it’s still almost 200 less.
Another Jack Sawyer or JT Tori Malo while played this past year. But the way Larry Johnson was talking, it seems like they’ve got that depth. And given the way the schedule is going to work out with potentially 17 games, guys look ready to be used a little bit more often than maybe they won’t be that big of a disparity throughout the year next year.
Andrew (03:39.538)
It can’t be, you know, it’s not, hey, can Ohio State have the depth to do this? It’s no Ohio State, whether or not they have the depth to do this. You can’t play Jack Sawyer and JT Tumaloa out 65 snaps every game. Like it’s just not going to work because by the end of the season, they’re going to be worn down if you are just constantly throwing them into the fire like that. So, you know, yeah, I think the depth building is huge here. Right. And, you know,
That was what Larry Johnson said today, where it was, well, we’ve never seen this before, so ask me during the season. Somebody asked him about the 17 game season and kind of the depth that he’s building, and you need to have depth. This isn’t a, oh, well, this is a nice thing to have. You’re not playing 12 games and then a conference championship game maybe, and then you have a month off, and then you play two more games. That’s not the way that this is gonna work anymore. It’s gonna be an NFL schedule. That’s what you’re basically playing.
And in the NFL, you had better be able to rotate some of those guys in a little bit. I mean, guys are going to get hurt. You have to have the ability to play different players. And yeah, depth is now a necessity. And when you look at guys like Kenyatta Jackson and Kaden Curry, you can’t be scared of putting them in a game that’s 17 to seven in the second quarter. Right. Like you can’t be afraid of saying, you know what? This game’s not out of reach yet, but we can put those guys in.
Because it’s one thing to say, of course they’re going to take Kenyatta Jackson and Kaden Curry out when it’s 56 to nothing in the middle of the fourth quarter against Akron, right? Those guys are going to be, you know, those guys are going to already have like a couple drinks on the sideline. Like they could do that if they wanted to. It’d be fine. But the situations that are really going to matter are can you trust Kenyatta Jackson to play a three down roll against Iowa in the second quarter? You know, can you trust a, you know,
Nathan Baird (05:25.566)
Thank you.
Andrew (05:37.806)
a kaden mcdonald or jason more to play a series or two against penn state those are going to be the situations that matter so yeah i mean building up depth is key and you have to make those numbers a little bit more even you have to bring those down to earth because you might be playing a handful of more games than you did at any other point in your history
Stephen Means (05:58.996)
Nathan, you were asking about some of this stuff, right? When it came to Kit and Yada Jackson and Kate and Curry and their potential roles in the seat 2024.
Nathan Baird (05:59.291)
But the other thing I-
Nathan Baird (06:08.726)
Yeah, I was, but I want to touch on something else first, which is... So, yes, he was asked about the 17 game season. Well, 17 game is like worst case scenario, because that means you’re, you didn’t get a, you didn’t win the big 10. You don’t have a first round by if you win the big 10 and you played in the big team championship game, that’s 16 games, which is only one more game than they would have played last year when they weren’t taking this approach at all. And it’s 16 games over more weeks because there are two idle weeks this year, two bye weeks.
built into the regular season schedule. So, yes, they’re talking about it in terms of the extra stamina that you’ll need, or maybe the other way of saying it is the extra wear and tear that will be there and needing to distribute reps, but really the most important thing from the depth standpoint, I mean, Larry Johnson is saying, these guys need to be ready to play 25 to 35 snaps. He’s not saying they are ready, and he’s not saying that they’re going to play that regardless of whether they’re ready.
So that’s why I think this is a big spring for some of these guys, especially these interior guys, to step up. Like, we’ve seen some flashes for some of those guys. It’s really more about, are they going to make the jump and step up and be worthy of 25 to 35 snaps per game? I think that is obviously the end goal. I think that remains to be seen whether they are all at that level. But I think it’s also, there are indications that they’re gonna have multiple guys who can get to that level. But I just wanna make sure that...
That’s how I see it anyway. That’s how I hear it when I talk to these guys. It’s not that, because I think in some ways, like I just said, that if everything goes according to plan for Ohio State this year, it’s only one more game. That’s not a backbreaking amount of extra work. And it’s not that different of a season unfolding than what they had last year with essentially the same number of guys. Actually, you would say they probably have, in theory, they’ll have more depth this year because they didn’t lose a lot. Mike Hall and Dran Cage, I guess.
but they didn’t lose a ton upfront. They will, they should be even deeper just naturally this year. But I think Larry Johnson also did acknowledge that today, which was, and it might’ve been the question you asked, right Stephen, and I can’t remember who asked it, but that this wasn’t, part of this was guides weren’t ready to play more snaps last year. So the question I was asking about Jackson and Curry was sort of in a different angle though, which was.
Nathan Baird (08:31.854)
I brought up the quote that Urban Meyer said, which was, and Doug used to bring it up on here all the time, which was the first two years are on us, the third year is on them. Meaning that the coaches are accountable for these first two years, getting them ready. And then the third year is when players are supposed to go. When I got Larry Johnson even off to the side at the end, because I’m like, this has to be a weird line for you to walk a little bit, because I’m sure in recruiting,
You were telling people like Kenyatta Jackson and Kaden Curry, Hey, by the time your third year comes around, you know, there’s a good chance. JT Tumaloa and Jack Sawyer are gone and now you guys are the ones taking over and you can, it’s your time to cook. And at the same time, you can’t go too far down that road because you don’t know what the future is going to look like. And he said, yeah. And it wasn’t that there was a, I don’t think he felt there was a danger in those guys transferring, but he brought up on his own.
Hey, those guys could have gone on the portal. They could have left. And so again, that’s why I pulled them off the side to be like, so are you saying, like, did you have to like talk them out of the portal? And he said, no, but that you almost had to like preemptively have that conversation. And you’re hearing from parents, you’re hearing from other people, you have to have some conversations that just explain to people the lay of the land a little bit and that where there can still be a big role. And I’m intrigued to see how this plays out as I think everyone is, because on the one hand,
It’s you would think that this is a year for JT Tumalo out and Jack Sawyer to build off of what they did last year and that involved them playing a lot last year. But if these two guys are ready by naturally by their third year and it’s tough because they haven’t had a lot of game reps. Really? I mean, we talked about seeing Caden Curry do some things and Kenyatta Jackson’s mixed in there too.
Stephen Means (10:20.792)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Baird (10:26.846)
uh, Kayden especially got some like garbage time as a true freshman, but they haven’t played a lot of game snaps. They haven’t played as many game snaps as either two of them low hour Sawyer did at this stage of their career have not played nearly as many snaps as like even Zach Harrison played at this stage was clear. Maybe even Tyreek Smith, despite all the injuries that Tyreek Smith had at this stage of his career. So they’re a little bit behind in experience. And I think this is a big spring for them to and Larry Johnson in talking about this depth that he’s building.
said that these younger guys are repping a lot with the ones. And it’s a indication, I think both, that they are advancing, but also that they have to speed this up a little bit. They have to show these guys the best that they can in practice to get them to raise their level to be better by the time September rolls around.
Stephen Means (11:14.868)
And we knew this was going to happen right when you got this experience of a team that they were just going to be a I mean, we could make the list right now of guys who probably aren’t going to do that much this spring because they don’t have to write. Travion Henderson, JT Tremulah, Jack Sawyer, Emeka Buka, we can do Benzel Burke and Jordan Hancock. We can keep going on this list year. It’s just Larry Johnson was the first one who went there with us and saying that, I mean, listen, Jack and JT don’t have to do a bunch, which is why every time we’re in there.
Nathan Baird (11:29.982)
And so Burke, yeah.
Stephen Means (11:41.984)
You’re always seeing at least one of those guys maybe getting in a little bit extra work after practice because they probably did not do much During practice because to your point Nathan you are seeing it is Kenyatta Jackson It is Kaden Curry getting more work with the rep with the ones because they have to they have to speed this up a little Bit I read it the way you read it, but I only read it that way with the tackles I think the way he was talking about it with Kenyatta and Kaden it’s that they are ready and maybe last year they weren’t as ready
And this year the edge guys, especially already with, I think the order he said it in was Kaden Curry, Kenyatta Jackson, and then Mitchell Melton. And then obviously we can have a conversation about education and whether or not he can throw himself into this mix here, but it does seem like. If they don’t have to play Jack and JT for all 60 plus snaps against Oregon, they don’t have whether they do or not, they can, but they don’t have to, because they may be feel a little bit more comfortable about where Kaden Curry and where.
Kenyatta Jackson are at this point in their career while with the interior guys Andrew while he listed off a bunch of guys he lifted off, you know, Jason Moore and Kayden McDonald we’ve had intrigue about hero canoe this entire time and what’s going on with Taiwan Malone it does seem like more of a Okay, you got six months to really build a level of depth here that Barry Johnson can go from I think we have the depth to being comfortable with actually putting that depth out there and not just feeling like
Ty Leek Williams and Ty Hamilton are your only answers on the interior.
Andrew (13:13.082)
Yeah, I think they’ll get there on the defensive interior. I really do. I think there’s just too many names with too many, with too many names with too much talent. I mean, you’ve got Hamilton and you’ve got Williams right at the middle. I mean, those are your two. And then you talk about, I mean, Hiro Kanu played really well, I thought, last year. Steven and I, Steven brought this up
Andrew (13:43.322)
We looked at Jason Moore in fall camp last year. We kind of looked at each other. Like, I mean, this was like the first practice I ever saw in Ohio State. And we kind of looked at each other and we were like, well, that’s what elite defensive tackles look like. Like that’s what NFL defensive tackles look like. Go ahead.
Stephen Means (14:01.692)
Larry Johnson called him today the ideal three tech in this defense. Six foot five, two hundred and ninety five pounds. So Larry Johnson agrees with the assessment Andrew and I made all those time months ago.
Andrew (14:13.81)
Yeah, so that’s that is us telling you the dear Buckeye Talk listeners that Stephen Means and I know exactly as much as Larry Johnson does. Don’t read anything into that. So, so, yeah, so you have Hamilton, you have Williams up the middle. But then you have Cade McDonald, who he was the first person like somebody asked him, who’s your third interior guy? Cade McDonald was the first name off his off his lips. Then it was Jason Moore. Then he mentioned Hiro Kanu.
Stephen Means (14:22.004)
Bingo.
Andrew (14:42.858)
And then you have Will Smith Jr. in there. And then you have Taiwan Malone. Like you’ve got five guys, right? I’m not going to count Eric Mensah. I mean, that’s I mean, that’s a project that’s kind of too far down the line. But it feels like everyone in that room you could make a case for. And the building of that depth, I just I feel pretty solid about where Ohio State’s at considering it’s March 26th. They’re not going to play a game for over five months at this point. I just.
I think that with the summer, with the rest of spring practice, with a fall camp, I think that unit, name independent is probably built to handle that. I think you can figure out a one-two rotation where you have like, and by one-two I mean a pair, so you can figure out your starting pair, you can figure out your three-four, your next pair, you can probably go into five-six at that point and feel pretty solid about where you’re at there too. So.
You know, I think that they will have, they have enough names there where I think the depth will kind of sort itself.
Stephen Means (15:48.664)
Nathan, I wanted to touch on something that you hinted at there with the portal talk that Larry Johnson was getting into there. And he said something else that I thought was interesting. These aren’t the exact words, but he said something along the lines of he spent more time recruiting his own room than maybe doing the heist, the typical high school football recruiting, which that has nothing to do with why they only ended up with two defensive linemen in this class at all, but it is a different conversation than maybe Larry Johnson.
has gotten used to having with some players, especially with Kenyatta Jackson, Kaden Curry, as you mentioned, when they were getting recruited, they’re probably not expecting Jack Sawyer and JT Tuyumalo how to be here in 2024. Hey, JT Tuyumalo and Jack Sawyer are probably not expecting to still be here in 2024. But just that conversation you were having with him on the side, but then also the way he was talking with it when he was sitting with everybody of, it is a different, Larry Johnson’s the oldest guy on this,
on this coaching staff, he’s been coaching for a long time, but he seems to have come around to the reality and the adaptation that can sometimes come with you’re having to re recruit your own room. And maybe he had to do it a little bit more than normal simply because of how some developments with he had some guys in a good way come back and maybe throw off the way they maybe they were planning for this defensive line room drop down the line, maybe three or four years from now.
Nathan Baird (17:11.358)
Yeah. And it wasn’t either or because it’s the timelines don’t play off of each other. You know, signing day is when it is. And then, you know, then the NFL decisions come and it’s sort of three layers of it. It’s the, you know, he had the, the high school recruiting kind of the, the conventional high school recruiting, which was unconventional this year for him. And we can get into Edrick Houston in a minute. And then, cause today was first day he got to talk about that publicly. And then, and then secondly, then you’ve got to line up things with.
with JT Tumalo out and Jack Sawyer. And there was two kind of separate timelines there because everybody’s making their own decision even if they are all sort of fused together. And certainly I think the idea of you, you know, and you can go back to 2021 and listen to some old Buckeye talks. And I bet we weren’t talking about both of these guys still being part of the 2024 defense. It was always the assumption. I mean, these are, it’s not just like the best defensive ends in a particular class. It’s like five-star top 10.
defensive ends coming in, those guys tend to move, those guys tend to go on the fast track. Nick Bosa was on the fast track, Chase Young was on the fast track. It’s an exception when they’re not. And now they are both the exception to that rule now. And at the same time, then when you get that lined up, then you also are having to have these discussions with Kenyatta Jackson and Kaden Curry. And they call it recruiting the room or re-recruiting the room. I think in that case though,
Sometimes that’s a little bit dramatic because I think there are times when, and listen, Kenyatta Jackson and Kaden Curry are two separate conversations too. Because one guy is, you know, he’s Indiana, he’s closer, Kenyatta Jackson, different situation, and maybe he would have looked at things differently. I don’t know. We haven’t had a chance to talk to him. Hopefully, maybe later this week we can. But sometimes it’s just a matter of having conversations. It’s not like actively re-recruiting and having to promise things.
having to line up big NIL things. Sometimes it’s just a matter of having heart to heart to making sure everybody’s on the same page. And that was the concept I got from him, especially as related to Jackson and Curry. It was more just about, you know, talking through things, having adult conversations about where things stand. And the good news in the case of both of those guys is that there really is still...
Nathan Baird (19:38.33)
a role to be played, especially if they’re going to talk about giving 25 to 35 snaps to guys. And you may be right, that may have been more about the interior guys than he was talking about those specific numbers. But you can also see a situation here where you can utilize Kenyatta Jackson. Maybe he is not at the level of JT Tumaloa and Jack Sawyer as an all-around defensive end, but if the pass rush skills are there and he can just come in and
almost specialize and really emphasize pass rush skills for however many snaps that he is in some of these games, it can still have a really great impact because you’re going in as a guy, a third year major prospect guy. You’re already going to have a talent advantage on some of the guys that you’re going up against the big 10. And now you’re also going to have a stamina advantage that you’re going to go in with some guys who may be beaten on already for a half for three quarters.
and you go in and you can really light them up in theory. So I think we’re all intrigued by what this could look like as they start rotating down to that second level of guys because I think you could have a situation where this is a year where both of those guys can build a lot of buzz and set themselves up for something special in a fourth year by coming in and really maximizing their production in this third year, which by Ohio State’s plan, keeping everybody healthy.
Stephen Means (00:04.82)
So Andrew, one person we haven’t talked about yet on this pod was five star freshmen, education, who of course, the only five star defensive lineman in this class, one of two defensive linemen along with Eric Mensah, who had committed to Ohio state before the season started. And it felt like at least the way Larry Johnson even talked about it. It felt like that was pretty locked in as we headed into signing day, but it felt like the last two weeks heading into signing day, that conversation that seems to creep up every signing day.
Over the last four or five years here with Larry Johnson of is he going to retire? Is he going to keep playing? Keep coaching? Excuse me. Came up once again and there were rumors there were people who out there who thought maybe at extra Houston will be flipping to Alabama on signing day that obviously didn’t happen. And we kind of got to see that play out in real time with Ryan day, leaving the room on signing day to go talk with edger Houston and coming back into the room, not being able to talk about him until the very end of the signing day when it was official that he’d actually signed his, his paperwork.
This is the first time we’ve talked to Larry Johnson since a lot of that played out and layers been doing this for a long time. So he’s seen some crazy recruitments over the years. Nathan, you remember the JT Tui Malohau recruitment and how that literally went not just down to the buzzer. It went into like double overtime because he didn’t commit until three weeks before he had to report for fall camp. But Andrew, what did Larry Johnson have to say about the edger Houston recruitment and how that played out? And I guess the latest on.
the rumors and thoughts that maybe he might be done here in the near future.
Andrew (01:33.622)
Well, yeah, I mean, I think you look at, you know, you look at the recruitment as a whole, right? And it was a very unique recruitment. I mean, going back to the beginning of it, because Ohio State gets this defensive end, this five-star defensive end at a Buford, Georgia, great program. And like you said at the top, you felt great about where Ohio State was at.
And then just a couple of days before signing day, those, those whispers start to emerge because this was back in a magical land where Nick Saban was still the coach of the college football team. And as Steven and I discussed many times on the, on the recruiting pods that we do here, we talked about this and like, you know what, sometimes guys just, sometimes guys just want to play for Nick Saban. And some guys, sometimes guys just want to go play for Nick Saban. And
You know, you hear all the rumors that Ohio State is recruiting or, excuse me, teams are recruiting against Ohio State in this regard, but they’re telling you that Larry Johnson’s going to retire or that he’s only got a year left. Um, and, and it really kind of felt dicey. And I remember on signing day on the morning of signing day, we were getting ready to go in and there were a couple of crystal balls floating out there from, from some national sites that had him flipping to Alabama. And Larry Johnson said today, he, it was, you know, it was quiet. It was dark on his end.
They didn’t get in touch with him. They didn’t, they weren’t hearing from him. They didn’t know really what was going on. Um, so I think, I mean, it was a really unique recruitment. He said that it wasn’t anything like he’s had before. Um, you know, he said that Edward Houston showed up on the first day and was like, you know, oh, this is, I love it here. You know, this is where my heart is. And it’s fun to say now, and I think it’s a good story now, but it certainly was not that way all the way through. So yeah, it was a very unique recruitment. And.
To me, like when you talk about this recruitment, it doesn’t really seem to me that I just think it’s a good example that, you know, Larry Johnson can still swing these guys and Larry Johnson can still pull in these players because the number one thing that you can point to is, hey, look, Larry Johnson, 72 years old, and he did get this five star player to come from the South and play for Ohio State. And the school that he was coaching against, the school that he was recruiting against, their head coach retired.
Andrew (03:49.866)
Like what, like probably the biggest reason that, uh, Edrick Houston was considering Alabama. And like, there’s nothing wrong with this is that they had the best college football coach of all time. That’s okay. That the players want to play for that dude. And I just think it kind of signifies like, you know what, like. You can still win these battles and you can still kind of compete with the heavyweights. And then especially you have another example to point to where it’s, Hey, look, everybody’s telling me that I’m going to retire and.
go look at that dude. And I think that is, that kind of to me was what that recruitment signified. So yeah, very, very unique recruitment. I remember, I mean, we all talk about Ryan Day, like getting up in the middle of the recruitment or the middle of his press conference to go take a phone call that he couldn’t say was from Beaufort, Georgia just yet. Like it, it got wild and it got weird. And I mean, Edward Houston, he seems like a really good football player. He seems like he’s gonna be a guy here maybe starting in like 2025, but.
For what this I think means for Larry Johnson and Frederick Houston, I think it’s pretty big because it kind of proves that Larry Johnson can still play with the heavyweights a little bit.
Stephen Means (04:57.588)
Nathan, I don’t think this came up today, but Larry did sign a two-year extension this off season. Ryan Day talked about Larry at length during an earlier off season press conference when he got him about the stability that Larry’s bringing there and not being necessarily fearful that he was going to leave here. But from this, that conflict, do you think the two-year extension part of this, especially for Larry Johnson, because this has continued to be an issue, does that-
kind of put some of that at ease if you’re a recruit and you’re maybe wondering that question that at least for the next two years, I know Larry Johnson is going to be.
Nathan Baird (05:34.856)
I suppose, yeah, I mean, you know, he can at least say, you know, instead of saying, well, we’re working on my contract for next year, you can always say I have a contract for next year. So that’s better. And we thought that there was a chance in the off season that they were going to, instead of promoting James Laurinaitis, bring in another defensive line coach to sort of act as the...
redundancy there, right? Let the, you know, have them both sort of recruiting that group and then knowing then, you know, both those guys. But guess what? That sounds like a great plan until somebody decides they want to make that guy an even higher paid defensive line coach than you will and steals him away. I mean, there’s no guarantees and I think that’s why if you’re smart about this as an athlete, you’re, as much as you want to develop your relationship with these guys,
make it about more than that. And they all say that at the end of the day, we’ve all obviously seen cases where that’s not the case, whether that’s Clark Phillips with Jeff Halfley, whether that’s things that have worked in Ohio State’s favor over the years. So it doesn’t hurt. There isn’t hurt to get that second year, to have a two-year contract on the books. Ohio State can then, after this coming season, if Larry’s gonna stay around for another year, you can tack another year on the back end of that.
His salary from the time that I’ve been here, I’d have to go back and look, it hasn’t fluctuated significantly. He’s been past a million dollars for most of that, but it’s not like he’s getting big chunks added onto that. Like his duties haven’t significantly shifted, so he’s kind of locked in at what he’s making. It’s, that’s in the bottom line of what they’re paying the staff right now, kind of baked in. So that’s not a big factor. It’s just...
about what are they comfortable putting on the books. I think what’ll be maybe a telltale sign, and again, I’d have to go back in and look at the contracts, is usually there’s a, well, if the coach leaves early, maybe they owe a buyout or whatever, but that doesn’t usually apply to retirements, obviously. So even those things won’t give us a big hint as to what’s going on here. I think it’s just, when Larry’s ready to go, he’ll obviously go, but he doesn’t ever come around to us and talk like somebody who’s...
Nathan Baird (07:56.872)
got one foot out the door. Like he sounds like he is still pretty invigorated by this, that the competitiveness is still there. He was talking today about when I was asking questions about Tumaloa and Sawyer and like, you know, trying to maximize the final year that you now have with him. And he was going on this long thing about, it was either in relation in response to my question or one that Bill Rabinowitz asked, cause they were similar. But he was talking about, you know, how he in the off season goes out and like, how can I be a better coach? And I go back and I rewatch every,
Stephen Means (07:58.687)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Baird (08:25.984)
play that was played and I think how could I do that better? And then we figure some things out and then we go work the crap out of it or something like that. Like that’s a, that’s pretty close to a direct quote. And there’s still a passion in this guy. There’s still a fire in this guy to do this job. And the other thing is like, now, so now this 2024, if, if this is the best case scenario for Ohio state and this defensive line is just a behemoth, is that something that he’ll see? All right. That’s a.
great way to go out and it’s time to just right off into the sunset, especially if they win a national championship. You could bookend your tenure with national championships. Like he came in 2014, it’s a leave in 2024 and just mic drop, say came in with a title, left with a title. What are you gonna do? Or is it so impressive that he’s like, you know what? I mean, I’ve obviously still got it. I’m getting Edrick Houston. I’m coaching these guys to this performance. I can stick around here and do this a few more years. And frankly, let’s be honest, like as long as he’s getting the recruits,
You’re not gonna hear a lot of complaining about whether Larry Johnson’s there or not.
Stephen Means (09:29.192)
And it does seem like they kind of took that intermediate step. Obviously the extension for Larry Johnson and two year extension. He shouted out Brandon Jordan and Lallen Clark, who are his GAs in that room and helping out with some of that stuff as well is off to who you see the players with. So it’s, it’s not just Larry Johnson or nothing in that room. He does seem to have a team of guys and seems to be embracing that as well. Larry Johnson, one of three prominent people in the Ohio State football program still left from that 2014 national championship season, the other two, Mark Pantone.
Mcmorality everybody else gone either retired or just you know at another school right now We’re gonna take a quick break there, and then we will come back. We’ll flip sides of the ball We’ll talk tight ends where the optimism doesn’t seem to be as high at least right now And at least the way that Keenan Bailey was talking about things and we’ll get more into that when we come back here
Stephen Means (10:19.988)
Get the text 614-350-3315 as Kenan Bailey and Larry Johnson were talking. We were texting stuff out when Black Stripe started coming off. We’re texting that stuff out as well. Both Caleb Downs and Quinn Sean Judkins, the first two transfers, this number two and number three player people overall to lose their Black Stripes this spring. Obviously Jeremiah Smith kicked that off last week by being the quickest to ever lose his Black Stripe, which is it’s a big deal because it’s a big time recruit. But as Nathan has also pointed out, it was like
One practice ahead of what carnell tate lost his and I think it was one practice ahead of where justin fields Lost his back in 2019 and so it’s not like he’s blowing everybody else out of the water It’s just a cool thing to point out when you’re trying to find every way in the world to hype up the greatest wide receiver Prospect of the last decade. So why not but that’s not who we’re here to talk about today. We’re here to talk tight ends nathan I We we did a video on this and we were even having a discussion about this about what are the production?
of what we saw from Cates over the last two years has to be mirrored in 2024 for this Ohio State offense to be good. I think we all came to the consensus of that being yes, but there does need to be a level of just high level of play there. And I don’t think Keenan Bailey six practices in is ready to say that he has got a guy like that who can be that for him, even with G Scott as the only guy on this roster who has played more than a hundred snaps that tied in for Ohio state.
Nathan Baird (11:46.528)
Andrew a couple weeks ago referenced Moneyball, and we wanna be careful how often we do this, but I’ve sort of been thinking about that same line today. Recreating Cade Stover in the aggregate, maybe that’s what this is about here in this next six to nine months. Now maybe somebody else steps up. Frankly, we weren’t sure that Cade Stover was gonna do what he did these past two years until he did it.
Andrew (11:54.018)
No we don’t. Quote baseball movies more. I like it Nathan.
Nathan Baird (12:15.528)
You know, 2021, he was had made this transition to the tight end room for most of the year, finished the year in the tight end or in the linebacker room with for the Rose Bowl. People remember. So he was mostly in the tight end thing, but they needed help at linebacker late. Jeremy Ruckert was playing the bowl game so they could they could afford to put Kate Stover on that side of the ball. But it definitely left open some questions of how good.
how productive he could be in 2022 and 23. And then the way that both, I think the way you can tell that it was real was that both CJ Stroud and Kyle McCord had essentially the same production with him. Like he, they got about the same thing out of him. And that tells you that it wasn’t just one favoring him over the other or something like that. So there were some things there that are like very specific to his skillset that he was able to get because even other really good tight ends, even other NFL tight ends.
Ruckert, Luke Farrell, name some other guys. They didn’t have that sort of production at Ohio State as a receiving tight end. So with the depth of this receiver core, with the fact that you’re gonna have two running backs, who on occasion you probably even wanna get on the field together somehow, I think it does reduce how crucial it is to be getting receiving production out of the tight ends. Where I think people should put their, I know everybody wants to see
um, Jelani Thurman just go out and do Antonio Gates things. I know that’s what they want to see. I know it. I know you guys want it. The people want to see him go out and just be a monster and it would be really cool. I guess if he did, it would be fun to watch. I just don’t know that that’s in the cards for 2024. And I think the most critical thing, I mean, that would be fun to watch.
But it would not be as fun to watch if you’re an Ohio State fan as winning a national championship. And the thing that’s most critical for a national championship is just the all around play these tight ends and especially the blocking. I think that’s where Keenan Bailey, who is a fairly reserved guy anyway, like he doesn’t come in and just, uh, he’s, he’s measured in the way he talks about things, especially like not trying to overhype guys. I think that’s smart young coach. I don’t think you want to get out over your skis on stuff like that. But I think his point is that.
Nathan Baird (14:35.124)
You know, Will Kosmieric has a good foundation laid in the Mac, but he is making a transition. You know, G. Scott has done some good things in a backup role, but he would, it’s a step up if he’s gonna try to be the guy in this offense. So we’ve heard other coaches saying good things about G. Scott and teammates saying good things about G. Scott and how the spring is going for him. Jelani Thurman, kind of a limited role last year. Looked like he was gonna get a bigger role in the cotton ball. Things went sideways. I don’t know if you guys were watching. Wasn’t great. So he didn’t get to
to have as much of a role as maybe they were expecting him to have that night. Just, there’s still some unknowns here. And I think it’s probably in his best interests, me and Keenan Bailey’s, and that group’s best interest to let us talk about it and speculate. That’s fine. Don’t maybe play that far into it. You’ve also got some other guys hanging around, Bennett Christian, you’ve got some freshmen coming in, though that’s really more like a couple of years down the line really for that kind of, those guys to probably start making an impact.
I think it’s more just about can you get a collective blocking effort that you need from this group first and foremost. And then on top of that, because of all these other offensive weapons, I think beyond just keeping them involved, if you get production beyond that as a receiver from the Titans, that might just be kind of cherry on top.
Stephen Means (15:55.116)
I thought it was interesting when he brought up Bennett Christian and said, because he couldn’t play all last year because he was suspended for the season for taking an illegal substance, a banned subject substance, excuse me, legal. He didn’t break up law. He just broke an NCAA rule. It’s a very different thing as the Supreme court keeps telling us, but he was with the scout team all last year. And I do wonder if with Bennett Christian, especially you’re going up against Jack and JT a lot when you’re on scout team and,
Keenan Bailey had brought that up about even this year going up against Jack and JT and what that can do for you. I do wonder if even behind the scenes Bennett Christian was maybe able to take a step just because all of his snaps were against the ones technically because you’re playing on scout team. Andrew, the way he, there’s almost two ways that he could have taken this, right? Because let’s bring Brian Heartland into this conversation who has a similar room and a Mecca Bucca side. It’s a bunch of unproven guys.
There’s some guys that you think are going to be pretty good, right? In the wide receiver room, you got Cardinal Tate, Brandon Dennis, Jeremiah Smith, maybe Jayden Ballotray to take off in year four, just like in the tight end where those are guys that you think are going to be pretty good for you. Jelani Thurman, maybe Will Casmeric can make that jump. G Scott continues to make progressions in that situation, but it’s nothing proven in either one of those rooms. And Keenan Bailey could have done what Brian Hartman did and go, no, I’m not worried about anything as input.
Boatloads of confidence into what he has coming into his room, but he didn’t necessarily do that In fact when he was talking about Jelani Thurman at times He almost said the opposite of first you have to figure out what you’re doing there So in terms of the Jelani Thurman part of this what it just by the way Keenan Bailey was talking on Tuesday What are you may be expecting his role for Jelani Thurman to be early in the year? Regardless of what it turns into by end of the year What are you expecting to see out of Jelani maybe the first three or four weeks of the season?
Andrew (17:49.486)
Well, I think early, especially, I mean, for especially this room, because he mentioned this with Will Kaczmarek too. I mean, this is a guy who’s coming in and learning a new offense, learning new schemes. I think when he was talking about, I think it was when he was talking about Will, he said, no, the why of, you know, why things are happening. And he’s like, that’s the next step. And I think that you could probably make a similar argument for Jelani Thurman, you know, kind of understanding the why and understanding, you know, why things happen. Why are you doing this?
what’s going on in this particular formation and this particular set that makes you wanna do that. So with Jelani, I think the first couple of weeks are gonna be pretty clearly a test run of kind of what the year can look like because I’ve made mention of this a couple of different times. The schedule plays out really nicely for you, you know, in terms of making sure that, you know, you’re building up into the season. There’s not a Notre Dame to start the year, right?
You know, this isn’t 2025 when Texas is coming to town early, I think the first game of the year to kick things off. Like, this is a very much a slow burn to get into the season. Play two max schools first, then you get a bye week, then you play Marshall, and then you go to Michigan State at the end of September. So I think for Jelani, it’s going to be a test run. It’s going to be how can you handle the different things that we’re going to throw at you? Because you can handle Jelani Thurman.
in a situation where maybe he’s a little bit uncomfortable, or maybe he hasn’t seen certain looks, or maybe he hasn’t played in a game in a certain type of situation. And okay, we’re gonna play him against Akron, we’re gonna see how he does run blocking, we’re gonna test him run blocking, we’re gonna test him running routes, we’re gonna test him out wide, we’re gonna test him in line, we’re gonna test him when he goes in motion. Like we’re gonna test him in all of these different ways. And I think that you can obviously learn a lot over the next two or so weeks until spring practice happens, or ends.
You can obviously learn a lot in the next three months before fall camp begins. You can obviously learn a lot in the month that fall camp happens. So there’s a lot to go into this still. But I think the first couple of weeks of the season for Jelani are going to be big in that it’s basically your final exam. Right. You know, everything that you’re learning right now. I mean, this is like the first semester for him, you know, of kind of the 2024 season. It’s all right. You’re probably like midterms, maybe final exams of the first semester. And you’re trying to put everything together.
Andrew (20:14.762)
And then over the summer, you got to study, you got to get, you know, the playbook down, you got to get the terminology down. You got to make yourself a physically ready player that can do both things because you don’t want to be, I know Nathan brought up, you know, replacing Kate Silver in the aggregate, but you don’t want to be the guy who can only go out for routes. Like you want to be the guy who can play three downs because you can block. And that’s the role that you want to have. So there’s a lot that goes into this, but yeah, to me.
it’s gonna be a real trial by fire when you get to the first three, probably four games of the year for Jelani Thurman. I think that’s probably fair.
Stephen Means (20:49.508)
Nathan, when you mix the way Keenan Bailey was talking about this group with just maybe what the expectations in terms of production could be for this group when you’re not really expecting it to be K-Dustover level production because it probably doesn’t have to when you look at all the weapons elsewhere. But still the way that Keenan Bailey talked about things, scale of one to 10, six practices in to, you know, 55 before they play a football game.
How worried are you about Ohio State’s tight ends in 2024, if at all?
Nathan Baird (21:23.368)
Yeah, I don’t think I would use the word worried. Like I came out of last spring worried about the Office of Line because I saw the Office of Line get the crap blasted out of it for a good portion of the spring. We’ve barely watched anything this spring. Like we saw 20 minutes each those first couple of days and we’re going to hopefully see a pretty extended look at it Saturday for Student Appreciation Day. So people should know we’ll be putting up a special Buckeye Talk on Saturday afternoon after we see things.
Stephen Means (21:32.493)
Uh-huh. Yeah.
Nathan Baird (21:49.372)
Hopefully an extended look. Now they keep things kind of vanilla that day, but we’ll get to see more. Like for instance, like we haven’t seen a seven on seven. Anything. Like we haven’t seen, we haven’t seen really anything. Like what they do before games to warm up, we haven’t even seen that much. So, you know what I mean? So, like Keenan Bailey could be sandbagging. I mean, Johnny Thurman could be out there like just going pancake, touchdown, just alternating snaps, like for all we know. Like...
Andrew (22:15.31)
It could be Kyle Pitts, yeah.
Nathan Baird (22:17.572)
So like yeah, he could be out there crushing it like we’ll find out and we haven’t heard that We would have probably heard that by now if that were actually going on. I’m just again you got just some new guys and some young guys and some unproven guys and in some of like G Scott who Even though we kind of look at him and are like well, he’s not really unproven Just hasn’t had to carry the weight on his own before
Stephen Means (22:18.57)
Yeah.
Nathan Baird (22:47.644)
But that doesn’t mean he can’t. That doesn’t mean that his best football isn’t ahead of him. And frankly, you know, he’s on, if you’re on a five year plan, he’s going to be a fifth year guy. It’s a developmental position. He should be more physically and mentally in place to play this position than he ever has been. And, and you would, we’ve seen growth from him each year. I would say even these last two years and into last year, I thought you saw real growth from him as to what he does on a football field to help Ohio State win. So.
the idea that he could take another step, that he could emerge and take some of those receiving skills that he built throughout the course of his life and now fuse it with what he’s done the last three, four years as a tight end and be a newer version of himself. I think that’s very much on the table. It’s just, have to see it. So, and all of those things, regardless of what’s true about that, tight end is also the, as much as I think it’s important to the offense, it’s not as...
central to the offense as say the offensive line was, where you had all five guys being kind of like, oh, what’s going on here? Where now you can be like, you know what I’m saying? Like they can, these are, they’re important, but also sort of ancillary pieces to what’s going on here. They’re not as central. So I think they can probably figure something out because again, think back to 2021, you had a guy in Jeremy Ruckert who was headed off to the NFL.
You had a guy in Cade Stover as the number two guy who was still transitioning to being a full time tight end and having that identity. And then you had some other guys hanging around your Mitch Rossi’s and, you know, like walk on level guys who were doing some of those full back ish H back tight end sort of things, helping out. Like it’s not necessarily about always at that position, having one high level guy who carries the weight. It is something where.
You do a lot of things with packages. You mix and match. And you know that Ryan Day likes to do that. And the reason, one of the reasons he likes to do that is because Chip Kelly likes to do it. And that’s who he learned a lot of this from. So I’m very intrigued by what they see in this tight end group and what they then wanna do with this tight end.
Stephen Means (25:01.016)
in is important because of what we’ve come to know at the Ohio State Office beyond the Ryan Day. But also they’ve got options. They can do a lot of different things. Just like what Jim knows, how we talked about, they can do a million different things and throw out a million different personnel packages. They can do the same thing on offense. And I think there’s not a long list of position groups this year where you don’t, you’re not certain what the starters are going to look like, but you at least have an idea formulating already in your head.
of what it’s going to look like, right? Linebacker, even if you’re not really sure if it’s going to be C.J. Hicks or Sonny Stiles, it’s hey, this five star recruit might be ready to blow or this five star recruit who already played a bunch of snaps last year. Can he just make the transition at offensive line? It’s kind of the same thing where it’s like, OK, look, Montgomery might be ready to play in year two. Tegra Shibola might be ready to take off. Maybe Josh Fryer after a year under his belt is ready to be more than he was last year. Titans probably just the biggest question mark in terms of who’s going to be the starter. But then what the depth behind them.
Looks like but we’re gonna get a chance to look at that on Saturday when we’re in the Woody 614 350 3315 two-week free trial 399 after that we’ll be back in the Woody also on Thursday talking with players Maybe some of the tight ends will be amongst that group. We’ll find that out later this week So yeah, get the text 614 350 3315 all news all analysis all everything go into your phone first before anywhere else For Nathan Baird for Andrew Gillis. I’m Stephen Means and that was Buckeye Talk
If you or a loved one has questions and needs to talk to a professional about gambling, call the Ohio Problem Gambling Helpline at 1-800-589-9966 or the National Council on Program Gambling Helpline (NCPG) at 1-800-522-4700 or visit 1800gambler.net for more information. 21+ and present in Ohio. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-Gambler.