Buckeyes Have A Plan To Move Forward Without Seth McLaughlin

The Buckeyes will be without starting center Seth McLaughlin for the rest of the season after he tore his Achilles tendon in practice on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Ohio State head coach Ryan Day revealed how the Buckeyes will move forward on the offensive line without their leader up front.

“We’ll move Carson to center and move Austin in there to left guard,” Day said of redshirt sophomore Carson Hinzman and redshirt freshman Austin Siereveld.

Hinzman began the season as the backup to McLaughlin but was moved to left guard at the beginning of November and has started the Buckeyes’ last three games there.

The left guard job came open when OSU’s starting left guard Donovan Jackson was moved to left tackle following injuries to starter Josh Simmons and his backup Zen Michalski. Siereveld, meanwhile, started the first two games this year at left guard for the Buckeyes while Jackson recovered from an injury.

“And those guys were there today, had a very good practice, a very spirited practice,” Day said. “I thought [quarterback] Will [Howard] did a great job after that went down yesterday and then even today. And so excited for those guys to get in there and have a great game. It’s a great opportunity for those guys now.”

Hinzman started all 12 regular season games at center for the Buckeyes last year, so this isn’t a foreign role for him by any means. Siereveld’s rise, meanwhile, was the talk of fall camp. Now they will be side by side as they work to keep the Ohio State offense clicking on as many cylinders as possible.

“They’ve both played a lot of football. We’ve won a lot of games with Carson at center, and Austin’s played,” Day said.

Day compared the injury to a body blow, but the games will go on. As he often says, “the game doesn’t care.” The team cares, but they still have more games ahead of them.

“Crushed for Seth and our team,” Day said, “But once that wears off, you’ve got to move on and you get into the next-man-up mentality.”

Seth McLaughlin’s injury is now the third major injury on the Ohio State offensive line this year. Both he and Simmons have been lost for the season, while Zen Michalski was described as “week to week” by Day on Wednesday.

Despite the injury and the shuffling, the Buckeyes had a very good practice on Wednesday as they prepare for a matchup on Saturday against No. 5 Indiana. The game isn’t going to wait for Ohio State, so they need to move on and get ready.

“You wake up the next day and you move on, but yeah, it’s tough,” Day said. “But that’s why you recruit depth and that’s why you work to get those young guys in the game. That’s why you work in the offseason to build depth. And we knew things like this can happen. And it’s not the NFL. You can’t just sign guys off of waivers. You have to have guys ready to go because, again, at the end of the day, nobody cares. We’ve got to move on and we’ve got to win games.”

Go to discussion...