Buckeye rewind: Football spring practice week 1
COVER PHOTO: The team gathers around head coach Ryan Day after he gave them a speech following Tuesday's second practice. Picture by Sam Fahmi/Columbus Wired.
The Ohio State football team hit the practice field inside the Woody Hayes Athletic Center this past week for their first spring practices of the 2023 season.
Head coach Ryan Day and defensive coordinator Jim Knowles took to the podium to address the media on Tuesday while several players talked to the media on Thursday.
Let's take a look back on what Day and Knowles had to say about some of the players as well as what some of the players themselves had to say about the first set of practices.
Harrison sounds off about Peach Bowl hit
It's become almost the stuff of legend at this point. Was the hit wide receiver Marvin Harrison, Jr. took against Georgia defensive back Javon Bullard targeting or not?
Depends on whom you ask.
Virtually everyone in Buckeye Nation believes there's no debate that it was targeting when Bullard led with his shoulder into Harrison's head and neck area as Harrison stood in the back of the end zone waiting on quarterback C.J. Stroud's high-flailing, third-and-goal pass to land in his hands. At that moment, Bullard leveled Harrison so hard that Harrison lie on the ground for several minutes in obvious pain. He was ultimately ruled out by OSU's medical staff for the rest of the game with a concussion.
However, Dawg Nation sees it the other way as did the referees. They initially flagged Bullard for the infraction but rescinded the call after reviewing it and said Bullard's helmet didn't touch Harrison's helmet and therefore no targeting would be enforced.
Was it a lascivious hit or was it clean? Harrison basically blew it off and said Bullard was just playing football.
"Obviously, he's just trying to make a play on the football," Harrison said on Thursday. "It's the ref's decision to make that call and whether he thinks it's targeting or not, it's kind of up to him. I'm not the one making the call."
The true sophomore had five catches for 106 yards and two touchdowns before the incident happened.
Many felt the offense's wind was taken out of their sails and "could have won" had Harrison remained for the final quarter.
The Buckeyes settled for a field goal after that to give them a 38-24 lead with 31 seconds to go in the third quarter. Georgia outscored Ohio State 18-3 in the final quarter to win, 42-41.
"I think it's always 'what ifs,'" Harrison said. "I know I can make an impact when I'm out there on the field. I would've loved to have been out there, especially the whole fourth quarter of a College Football Playoff game, but I got to live with it at this point."
After the hit, a sports memorabilia outfit called More Than Sports began selling photos of the hit that were supposedly signed by Bullard himself. After some backlash, the store said they would discontinue selling the photo and any proceeds they made would be donated to Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus. Something Harrison actually thought was somewhat funny but still had to clap back at in his own way.
"It was kind of funny to me given the play and the circumstance," he said. "I don't know exactly if he signed it or someone signed it for him or what the logistics of that is, but I thought it was kind of funny."
Harrison said he went through concussion protocol for the next few days afterwards but felt fine.
McCord and Brown looking to battle for QB spot
Much like five years ago when former quarterbacks Joe Burrow and Dwayne Haskins were looking to fill four-year starter and Big Ten/OSU record breaker J.T. Barrett's shoes, Kyle McCord and Devin Brown are going to be embroiled in much the same battle when they look to take over for previous two-year starter and stat stuffer, C.J. Stroud.
Many think that the sophomore McCord is the incumbent, given his two years of experience in the program and being Stroud's primary backup.
McCord said that kind of experience has been valuable.
"You have a lot more experience, a lot more reps, whether that's in practice or the game, and you kind of understand what the coaches are looking for. So I just think that experience speaks volumes," he said on Thursday.
Compounded with that is the fact he was Harrison's QB when the two played together at St. Joseph's Prep (Philadelphia) High School. And with that kind of rapport already being built with OSU's No. 1 receiver, the choice seems to be a no-brainer. Even if he didn't get a lot of reps with Harrison this past season because Harrison was running with the first team while McCord was with the second team.
"It's crazy the way everything works itself out, us both being here. I'm definitely excited to be able to play with him," said McCord. "I didn't get a lot of reps with him last year because he was going with the ones with C.J. but the chemistry is definitely still there. I throw with him a bunch, he's my best friend."
McCord even sarcastically told his best pal that he could probably do a great job of shutting him down if he played on the other side of the ball.
"I told him, if I was athletic enough to play DB, I'd be able to lock him down because I know all his moves, which he laughs at," McCord said with a big smile. "But no, it's good. It's always fun to play with a guy like that, his caliber, as well as your best friend."
McCord played in five games as a true freshman in 2021 and had one start, which came against Akron when Stroud was recovering from a sore shoulder. He set the record that game for passing yards by a freshman with 319. He ended the year 13-of-18 with 416 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. This past season, he appeared in seven games, going 16-of-20 for 190 yards, one TD and no INT's.
However, don't count out Brown.
As an Elite 11 finalist two years ago, the redshirt freshman from Corner Canyon (Draper, Utah) High School came in as a four-star recruit and was the nation's sixth-rated quarterback prospect. After enrolling early last year, this will be Brown's second set of OSU spring practices, so he already has one spring's worth of experience tucked under his belt. It also doesn't hurt that former OSU and Big Ten Silver Football Award winning QB Joe Germaine was his high school coach for three years at Queen Creek (Gilbert, Ariz.) High School.
In his senior year at Corner Canyon, he threw for 4,881 yards, 57 touchdowns, tacked on another 430 yards rushing with eight touchdowns and led the Chargers to a state championship game appearance.
It's that kind of athleticism that makes him Yin to McCord's Yang as far as being more of a scrambling type, something the Buckeyes kind of haven't had the last two years.
"Obviously I'm no Justin Fields," he said. "But I think I'm in between a Justin Fields and a C.J. Stroud in terms of my play. I feel like I can extend plays with my feet and make guys miss but I also have the arm strength to make pretty much every throw on the field. And I believe in my whole heart that there's not a throw on the field that I cannot make."
Even then, Brown said the quarterback competition has been good so far.
"I think me and Kyle are two of the best quarterbacks in the country," he said. "I feel like when I'm at my best is when I'm the best competition in the country. So going against Kyle every day really boosts my confidence and boosts my drive to try to get better every day and I feel like I'm doing the same for him."
And Brown's competitive spirit hasn't gone unnoticed. After Thursday's practice, he seemed to get down on himself after making one bad throw and was asked about why he seemed to be so harsh on himself with one pass.
"Everything is not going to be perfect at the end of the day, but me and Kyle are competing and you want every rep to matter. So every rep you want it to be the best rep and that's why I kind of got on myself a little bit."
No more jack for Jack
Last season, sophomore defensive end Jack Sawyer didn't look comfortable in his new role as a jack, which is a hybrid linebacker/defensive end. In Knowles' 4-2-5 defense - which features four defensive linemen, two linebackers and five defensive backs - it also features what Knowles calls his "jack" position, which relies on a guy to either stand up like a linebacker along the line of scrimmage or hunch down as a defensive end. According to Knowles, when he explained last season what his jack is expected to do, it is to initially disrupt the opposing offense's rushing attack. Then as the game wears along, the jack will continue to line up differently to confuse the offensive coordinator in the hope of causing chaos to the passing attack.
Knowles then said his expectation was that as the season continued, the jack would become more of a "leo", meaning he's like "Leo the Lion", the "king of the jungle" and has mastered the art of pulling off being proficient as both a linebacker and defensive end.
However, that didn't necessarily seem the case for Sawyer. As a heralded five-star defensive end out of Pickerington North two years ago, he played all 12 of his true freshman games in 2021 as a traditional, hand in the turf, come-off-the-edge defensive end in Kerry Coombs' 4-3 defense. He logged 13 tackles - three of which were sacks for 24 yards - one forced fumble and one pass breakup.
Last year he appeared in all 13 games, and even though he tallied 24 tackles and tied for the team lead with 4.5 sacks as well as a total of 6.5 for-loss, he still didn't look as fluid as many in Buckeye Nation were expecting him to look.
Apparently, Knowles saw it too and decided that going into the spring, he was going to let Jack be Jack without being the jack.
"Jack will be an end with J.T. and he'll work on all those fundamentals of being an end," Knowles said on Tuesday. "I think that's important for Jack. I feel like he didn't have the improvement or the big jump that he could have last year because he got involved in the jack stuff and maybe he wasn't as focused as he could have been to make those improvements at D-end. So I want to make sure I keep him at D-end opposite J.T."
Sonny Styles "is a playmaker" who is "going to play a lot of football."
That's what Day had to say on Tuesday about the safety when asked if Styles is ready to be a starter.
Day balked at committing to the Pickerington, Ohio native as one of the first 11 to take the field but said the 18-year-old, reclassified true sophomore will definitely see the field quite a bit.
"You (saw) what he could do in his first year (and) we're always trying to find the first 11 guys and then we build it from there. In the role that he played last year, stepping in after reclassifying and coming in in the summer, I couldn't have more impressed with what he did."
Stout praise considering Styles should be a true freshman this year. But after graduating from Pickerington Central a year early, the 6-foot-4, 222-pounder made his presence known in the third game of the season against Toledo when he laid the lumber to Rocket wide receiver Adam Beale after Beale caught a pass in the flat on 3rd and 8 and Styles put him flat on his back for a minimal gain.
"He's got a really, really bright future ahead of him (and) I think he can do a lot of things for us (and) as we start to get into the spring, we're going to dive into some of the things he can do for us," Day said.
Styles ended the year playing in 10 games with nine tackles including one for a two-yard loss against Rutgers.
New numbers
Here are the new numbers for some guys that switched from last year as well as transfers and true freshmen that are on campus now. A (T) denotes a transfer while an (F) denotes a true freshman. Numbers based on the school's official website.
SAF Sonny Styles: No. 20 to No. 6
WR Kyion Grayes: 17 to 7
SAF Ja'Had Carter (T): 14
QB Tristan Gebbia (T): 15
WR Carnell Tate (F): 17
DB Davison Igbinosun (T): 20
CB Jermaine Mathews, Jr. (F): 24
SAF Malik Hartford (F): 25
Long snapper John Ferlmann (T): 30
RB Will Hartson (F): 30
QB Devin Brown: 15 to 33
OL Luke Montgomery (F): 51
DT Will Smith, Jr. (F): 53
OL Victor Cutler, Jr. (T): 59
OL Landon Smith (T): 59
OL Austin Siereveld (F): 67
OL Miles Walker (F): 76
WR Bryson Rodgers (F): 80
WR Noah Rogers (F): 80
K Casey Magyar (T): 95
The team has the upcoming week off for spring break and will return on Monday the 20th.