Ohio State Practice Insider: Standout Defenders From Saturday Practice

This time, you're about to feel, feel, feel, feel.

Hello everybody, welcome to the Buckeye Weekly Podcast.

I'm Tony Gerteman here as always with Tom Ork.

Tom, how's it going?

Tony got a chance to do the student appreciation practice which is always kind of a nice little

drive run for the spring game where we can be out on the field, we can, you know, and

there's a million students around and I thought it was a great prep for the season, like

this is as close as we get to actual football during spring ball because they even had guys

in Reftersy standing out there and like getting in the way of my photos from behind the

offensive.

I was like, wow, this is, this is really good prep for the season.

Mid season four already, the officials, all right, good on you, Tom.

We are here to talk about some of the defensive standouts that we saw today.

We discussed the offensive standouts that we saw on Buckeye's tomorrow morning, the latest

episode of that.

Presumably, that's been dropped by the time this is dropped.

Who knows?

Really, there's no way to tell.

But look for it at some point.

Defensively, Tom.

I'll go ahead.

Because when we were talking about doing the shows, you're like, well, let's do three on

one side of the ball, three on the other, and then like, I don't know if you said at the

same time, James Smith.

Yeah.

And so if you would like to begin with James Smith.

Sure, yeah.

And James Smith, on the offensive show, one of the guys we talked about was Dev McEwan

and Dev McEwan lost his black stripe and then after practice on Saturday, James Smith lost

his black stripe.

And you know, Dev McEwan, when he lost, you know, when he was not the first guy, Kyle Parker

lost his black stripe and then Brock Boyd lost his black stripe, it's like, oh boy, what's

wrong with Dev McEwan?

He answers, nothing.

He took him one whole more practice to lose his black stripe.

And then Quay Rousseau lost his black stripe and everyone went, whoa, didn't see that coming.

I thought it'd be James Smith and how long, how much longer did it take, one practice.

So and he was, you watched practice and it was like, I can't imagine he's going to, he's

going to have that black stripe on much longer because he was someone that just even through

winter workouts, we had been hearing, like physically, just a dominant, dominant player.

And the little bits and pieces we'd seen of practice, you sort of saw that.

You kept hearing more about that the last couple weeks.

I was a little surprised he had lost his stripe already.

And then on a day when the defensive line was really, really impressive against a sort

of patchwork off fence of line, we should say, that was, you know, James Smith was probably

these, maybe the single most impressive of the defensive lineman.

Well, and he worked at three tech.

He also worked at nose tackle.

He was at three tech with the two's, nose tackle with the ones.

Sometimes none of you would switch because well Smith was out there with the ones as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They're mixing and matching.

And then we also got to see them do some one on ones.

There was a one on one between James Smith and Gabe Van Cycle, where let me see if I

have here.

Basically, James Smith starts running through him.

I know he does a spin move, grabs Van Cycle and throws him down and continues on.

And then there was one with freshman Mason Williams.

Uh-huh.

And Mason Willem.

I should have mentioned, we should have mentioned on the offensive show because Willem

still made it in.

And James Smith took a shot at his, you know, slapped him in his end helmet and then did

it again.

Yeah.

And he was not appreciative of being still mated by a true freshman.

And Mason Willem has done pretty well.

Yeah.

He was impressive today as the number two center for the bucket.

Yeah.

And again, we've mentioned this on the offensive show.

They were missing a bunch of different guys.

You get three of the top eight were not part of the, uh, part of the offensive line on Saturday.

So guys were probably wrapping a little earlier than they might have been otherwise.

I was right behind the quarterback or whether quarterback would have been on that.

I can tell you, you could have thrown a flag on that one.

It was not, it was not the, uh, the listen, you know, only, only if the officials throw

a flag and they didn't throw a flag.

So you could, you could have thrown a flag on that one, I think for sure.

But yeah, he, that was one where you kind of see a little bit of, you know, the competitive

streak, a little bit of a mean streak.

And what you're looking for out of your defensive tackles, um, besides him, I think we have

to talk about the fact that, uh, they keep kicking on the, uh, Wi-Fi log in page, um,

Terry Moore was someone that we've talked about a bunch in terms of, okay, he's not with

the ones.

Why, when will he be with the ones?

Because he was someone I think we came into the spring expecting to see with the ones.

Yeah.

And he was with the ones about half the time.

It was, you know, he and Leroy Roker were still, we're splitting reps there.

But when he was out there, I, I don't think I saw him get, give up any completions.

I thought, I thought he looks pretty solid from, and, and I think there were a couple

of times he was maybe, uh, coming crashing downhill to make some, uh, tackles in the

run game as well.

Well, there, there was a time and it wasn't, it was two of the freshmen safeties where they

had them both on the line of scrimmage blitzing, a double safety blitz there that was quite

effective against the third team offense.

Yeah.

Terry Moore, it was interesting watching the safeties because we saw Jalen McLean mostly

in the slot, but then, you know, sometimes our little would be there and sometimes he'd

be in the middle of the field and sometimes he'd be the deep safety, sometimes he'd be,

you know, box safety, sometimes his field, like, just, you'd have to like, why are you here

now and why is Jalen McLean over here in the eyes, Terry Moore there, sometimes Terry

Moore's the strong safety, you know, the boundary, sometimes he's in the deep safety.

And yeah, he didn't look out of place.

I thought, uh, he looked good, um, it's the, the, uh, overall, like, those safeties, and

then they'd have, we were a rooker in there at times as well, like you said.

And it, it looked like a good group, sticking with the secondary because I know we could

talk about the deep.

It's a lot.

Dominic McKinley had a good day.

Yeah.

That corner, uh, broke up a pass to, uh, to Jeremiah Smith, Dominic Kelly, you got to

correct me on, uh, Connor Hawkins on the last show.

Yeah, I was not the first time I've said Dominic McKinley, I don't know who that is.

Um, I think that's a report of some kind, but I thought he had a, but good, um, Devon

Sanchez had a nice day to rain Matthews, as you know, it's going to be fine, but couldn't

see Dominic Kelly step up and he was with the twos, but, um, he's going against Chris

Henry Jr.

Brockwood, um, and sometimes one of the older guys would maybe get mixed in there

a little bit as well.

Yeah, I thought he was someone who, he's another guy who we just hadn't seen a lot because

the last time we were here was week one and they weren't in pads and what you saw from

him was kind of like, okay, like there was one rap where I think he was covering, um,

Brody Lennon the tight end, uh, second year tight end, I saw him covering him and I thought

I had good coverage.

I think the past might have been thrown there and he kind of broke it up.

Like he had, he had a couple plays where I kind of went, okay, like making, making

a note there in a positive, in a positive manner, kind of a note.

So yeah, I, I thought that was sort of an encouraging sign.

He's not someone who I expect them to, you know, he, I don't expect him to jump Devon

Sanchez or Jermaine Matthews, but if you have another outside corner who they feel good

about, then maybe Jermaine Matthews goes inside to the nickel.

I mean, you've got, you talked about her a little doing a bunch of different stuff.

If you've got another guy who's there and it allows you to maybe move someone else

around.

It does some good depth there, you saw a bunch of safeties, Blaine Bradford, I thought

I had a good day.

Yeah, yeah.

Freshman safety playing, uh, playing free safety, but also you'd sometimes see him

sneaking up on the line.

He was on the line up bunch.

Yeah.

So that was interesting to watch.

And yeah, they're crowding that defense that the line of scrimmage with the linebackers

at times as well.

Not that we're supposed to get to into specifics, but we don't really know we're talking

about anyway.

Well, and it's, you know, you're seeing, you're seeing practice number eight of the spring

and they're through, they're doing a bunch of different stuff that, you know, I don't,

I don't think they're doing any kind of install for ball state just yet.

So it's kind of, but it is, it's a lot for quarterback to deal with.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Speaking of a lot for a quarterback to deal with, Quay Russo, had a good day running

with the ones a defensive end and he's, he's fast, strong.

He was quick and effective.

I thought quite a bit rushing against, quite a bit against Ian Moore that I saw him doing

it.

Yeah.

And he, you saw him out there a bunch and a very, very, you saw him in the backfield a

lot.

And the other guy who I thought was, you know, someone who we've talked about sort of

in the same context as Quay Russo, Christian Allegro, and he lost his black stripe earlier

in the week.

So this is not exactly breaking new ground here, but he's continued to stand out to

me as someone who was interesting.

You saw him rushing the pass or some, but how often they were dropping him into coverage.

Like he, very clearly they feel, you know, we've talked about the fact that they think

he can do a lot of different stuff for them.

It was interesting to me how often it wasn't even just, well, he's just sort of lined up

at linebacker and just sort of sitting in the middle of a field waiting for a crossing

route.

He was out lined up split wide over, over slot receivers.

He was all over the place and looked pretty comfortable doing a lot of that stuff.

If you can do something where you're rushing off the edge, but you're also someone who can

cover at least, you know, I'm not expecting him to try and run with a Z receiver 40 yards

down the field.

But if you can play in space like that and be comfortable, but you can also be a mic

backer coming in the A gap, if, you know, against Iowa, but you're also going to be an

edge washer like, all right, that gives them a lot of different ways to use you and gives

you a lot of different ways and a lot of different times you can be on the field.

Yeah, and he's, he's plenty comfortable dropping back in his zone, but it was interesting

to see them kind of walking out like that.

So yeah, he, another guy that really stood out to me as Episodontal, like you rent your

freshman defensive end.

He was, with the two's mostly, he was given the, the left guard a lot of issues.

I think it's probably Jake Cook at that point, you know, splitting the left tackle and left

guard, the left tackle at that point, Sam Greer with the two's freshman, who was, him, him

in Carter Low, look like you put them together, like those are your bookends, man, like they

are some big, big tackles, but come back to like Orlando, Orlando Pace and Cory Stringer

in terms of size.

I was going to say, you know how we don't come people to Jeremiah Smith, yeah, you don't

come tackles to Orlando Pace, but up against the wall measuring the top of their heads.

But those, those two guys, and this is the defense show, but, and we talked about Carter

Low a little bit on the offense show as someone who was kind of thrown in there.

Those are the two guys who we talked about, I think on the, the show previewing the practice

about guys who we've been hearing some positive things about.

If they have to play Sam Greer at left tackle this year, that's not a great thing.

You don't want to put a true freshman at left tackle.

And Carter Low is probably not quite ready to be the starting right tackle for them either.

There's lots of guys ahead of him in, you know, in the pecking order once everyone's

back to being healthy.

But you, you looked at that and you thought, I could see this being the starting left

and right tackle for 2027 or, you know, if he and more has another year, like, I mean,

you've got, you've got, you've got other options, but you, you looked at those guys and it

was like student appreciation practice 2027 or 2028.

We might be seeing those guys with the wands.

Yeah.

So is this the defensive show?

Oh, yes.

Well, allegedly, um, anybody else for you, uh, yeah, I, Germain Matthews looked good,

Devon Sanchez looked good.

I thought, you know, the, the guys who were the starters who you sort of come in expecting

these guys will probably be good.

Look good.

Now that the quarterbacks were under duress a lot, which certainly helps.

But it was, you know, they were, they were not having balls heaved up and then with long

completions again.

Oh, I consider it a couple of moments.

So I think that'll be good.

Uh, the last thing, uh, when doing these one-on-ones, Kenyatta Jackson got his eye poked

by, uh, my Luke Montgomery did, um, and then afterwards, like several minutes afterwards,

Luke came up to him and was like, talking's like, this is what I was trying to do, you know

it.

Yeah.

And so, like, everything's fine there.

Kenyatta kept going.

But, uh, it's interesting to see that I was wondering to see like, well, James

Smith, then go over and talk to Mason Willell, uh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

But, uh, so there you go, some thoughts on the USA defense and some standouts from street

and appreciation practice.

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