With the Buckeyes’ center reportedly out for the season, the coaching staff needs to come up with a solution and fast.
While the program has yet to officially confirm the injury or Seth McLaughlin’s status, it was reported on Tuesday night that Ohio State’s starting center tore his Achilles’ tendon in practice and is expected to miss the rest of the season. This is the second devastating blow to Ohio State’s offensive line following the season-ending injury to left tackle Josh Simmons during the Oregon game in mid-October.
Following that loss, Ohio State moved left guard Donovan Jackson to tackle and tried Zen Michalski in his place. However, Michalski was injured in his first game, and last season’s starting center Carson Hinzman came in to take over at guard.
Since then the Buckeye line has not been perfect, but it has been far better than many people anticipated. Unfortunately, Ryan Day, Chip Kelly, and Justin Frye are going to have to make magic happen for a second time if McLaughlin’s injury is as severe as anticipated.
Day will meet with the media following Wednesday evening’s practice, and while he is generally fairly hesitant to discuss injuries, it feels that the nature of this one, coupled with the timing of a top-five matchup against Indiana on Saturday, he is going to have to at least provide some insight into what is going on.
In the meantime, we are going to take a look at what the options are for the Buckeyes to try to piece together a starting offensive line for the stretch run of this season.
I think at this point the only things that are guaranteed are that Jackson and Josh Fryar will remain at left and right tackle respectively. I just don’t see a situation in which it would behoove the Buckeyes to move Jackson back inside.
Option 1: Jackson, Siereveld, Hinzman, Tshabola, Fryar
When Jackson was injured during the first two weeks of the season, Austin Siereveld started in his stead at left guard. Since then, the sophomore has seen playing time at right guard behind Tegra Tshabola, but he didn’t appear to be in the discussion to slide back into that spot when Michalski was no longer available, so it is difficult to determine exactly what the coaching staff thinks of putting him back on the right side.
However, given the fact that Hinzman started 12 games at center for the Buckeyes last season, it would make sense for him to move back to the middle of the line and take over those responsibilities. This would allow Siereveld to then slide into the position that he started at for two games this season at left guard.
To me, this feels like the most logical option, as it gives you a line of five guys who all have starting experience in their spots, even if it would require a couple of moves.
Option 2: Jackson, Hinzman, Padilla, Tshabola, Fryar
If Day and company want to minimize the moving pieces, they could keep Hinzman at guard and install redshirt freshman Joshua Padilla at center. He was the No. 228 player in the 2022 recruiting cycle and the No. 11 interior lineman in the country.
I would put this below the option above as Ohio State is going to face an Indiana defense on Saturday that leads the Big Ten with 31 sacks on the season. Relying on a first-time starting center who has only played 29 snaps so far this season in that situation would feel risky at best.
While I would assume that offensive coordinator Chip Kelly would attempt to game plan around whatever deficiencies Padilla had, it would still seem safer to go with a group of experienced starters.
Option 3: Jackson, Tshabola, Hinzman, Siereveld, Fryar
Admittedly, this feels like the least likely of these options, because it would represent a bit of musical chairs ahead of OSU’s third top-five matchup of the season. But one of the reasons that Day said that Michalski was given the start at left guard against Nebraska was because he had been practicing at the position while Siereveld had been repping on the right side.
Obviously the same is true for Tshabola, but if the coaching staff feels more comfortable with his ability to flip sides than they do with Siereveld’s, they could ask the current starter to make the move and allow the rising backup to stick with the spot that he is most comfortable with.
In this scenario, you would see a new starter and two current starters switching positions. While it seems like it would be in the realm of possibilities, with only three days before the Hoosiers come to time, I would imagine that the coaching staff wants to minimize as many moving pieces as possible.
Option X: Michalski, Jackson, Hinzman, Tshabola, Fryar
No, the X in the header is not a typo, I just didn’t feel comfortable including it as an option on the same level as the others, because we don’t know the health of Michalski. However, there would be some logic in keeping Jackson and Hinzman next to each other when you move the latter back to center.
While Michalski’s short stint as OSU’s starting LT did not go particularly well even before his injury, clearly the coaching staff had some sort of faith in him. So, if he is healthy enough to get back on the field — and again, there’s no real reason to believe that he is — I could see this being a possibility for continuity’s sake, but given what we know about his injury, I don’t believe that it is truly in the conversation at this point.