In Many Ways, Josh Fryar Is The Perfect Buckeye

If you want a temperature check of a college football team, the offensive line is usually a good place to go. Every offensive line has a couple of guys that either lack a filter, or have no reason to employ one.

For Ohio State fifth-year senior starting right tackle Josh Fryar, he’s earned the right to be as honest as he wants to be, and he’s seen enough that he no longer feels like protecting the virgin ears of Buckeye fans or the media that covers the team.

If you want an answer, there are times when there’s nobody better to ask than Fryar. He’s experienced both the highs and lows in his five years under head coach Ryan Day, and he’s done it with the understanding that grief and greatness were both expected. A three-star recruit out of Indiana, nothing has come easily for him, which is what makes his story so much better.

Back in the spring or so, I asked Josh Fryar for his thoughts on the transfer portal. He said he wasn’t a fan because it encouraged players to give up and it discouraged patience and development. He himself didn’t start a game until his fourth year on campus. Some players are already on their second or third team by that point. Not Fryar. He grew, developed, worked, and is one of the team’s best leaders.

And now he is about to play for a national title.

How’s patience treated him so far?

“I think it’s paid off,” he said. “Playing for a national championship, if you were to tell me that when I was 10 years old, being a starting right tackle at Ohio State, I would say some cuss words at you.”

What cussing was he doing at 10 years old? The same as anybody else from Indiana, he replied.

Josh Fryar is also banged up. He may not be 100% physically, but everything he has, he is giving to his team.

“I don’t know. I guess you could say I’m gutting it out,” he said. “I don’t look at myself more than I’m just looking inside that huddle during the offense when we’re calling a play. I’m like, ‘I’ve got to do it for these guys.’ I’ve put so much in for them.”

What’s hurting an offensive lineman after a school-record 15 games?

Whatcha got?

“Yeah, you’d say everything,” he said. “I mean, we hit on a daily basis all the time. So you could have knee pain, ankle pain. You could have headaches. You have shoulder pains. You have hands, wrists, thumb, anything. But I think it just shows that we’re willing to do whatever to play.”

Josh Fryar has been everything that is right about college football. He is everything that is right with this Ohio State football team. In an age when the sport is spinning out of control, he is an anchor point to a more recognizable time. Call him old school if you like. You could also call him the perfect teammate and you wouldn’t be wrong.

He has also been an anchor point for an offensive line that has now started nine different players.

Offensive line coach Justin Frye has had to adjust to the losses of starting left tackle Josh Simmons and center Seth McLaughlin. He’s been able to lean on veterans like Fryar and Donovan Jackson, as well as younger players like Carson Hinzman, Tegra Tshabola, Austin Siereveld, and Luke Montgomery.

Frye has received his share of criticism in his time at Ohio State, but it’s hard to find fault with the successful responses from an offensive line that has had more upheaval this year than a west coast fault line.

And if you want Josh Fryar’s thoughts on his position coach, he’s more than happy to share them with you.

“Coach Frye is a great offensive line coach,” Fryar said. “He knows what technique to use on every single play. He busts his ass for us. Even though people give him hate all the time, I don’t understand. I don’t see why. He’s a great human being. He just wants the best for us. And I think that’s what you see out of him every single day is he’s trying to push us to be the best for ourselves.”

A fox hole may not hold many offensive linemen, but rest assured they’ll defend it and everyone down in the mud with them. The adversity this year could have torn this offensive line apart, but it’s done the opposite.

“I think we’ve grown closer as a unit than I’ve ever seen before,” he said. “I mean, I’ve been here for five years and I’ve been on a lot of offensive lines. I think this is the closest one we’ve had by far. And it’s because I think of the adversity that we’ve overcome to get to this point. And like Coach Day said, there’s a story still to be written.”

Part of that story was the day starting center Seth McLaughlin was lost for the season due to a torn Achilles tendon. The Buckeyes had just starting finding their groove without Josh Simmons, and then they lose the best center in college football.

“That day was an ‘oh shit’ for me,” Fryar said. “Just to see where he went from the winter time being the guy who wouldn’t talk, anything, and being all-American, Rimington winner. Yeah, it was a dark point in this season for us as a line, but I had confidence in Carson right away.”

The Buckeyes have fought through more than one devastating loss this season, and there’s no reason to think the fighting is done.

Monday night, Josh Fryar will play in his last game as a Buckeye. Few players can tell the story that Fryar can.

And he’ll get to cap the story against a Notre Dame program that never recruited him as an in-state prospect.

“Notre Dame didn’t recruit me when I was going out through high school, but I don’t have any ill will against that,” he said. “They didn’t think I was a good enough football player.”

Ill will wouldn’t have ever gotten Josh Fryar nearly as far as sheer will has. His story may not be told often, but his story is exactly the kind you’ll find on every championship team.

And that story has one more chapter to be written.

No matter the aches, pains, adversity, or whatever else the chaos of the universe wants to throw at the Buckeyes, Josh Fryar is still plenty driven to get the final job done.

“Yeah. Win a national championship,” he said. “That’s what’s driving me more than ever, because it’s a memory that will last a lifetime if you go and do it.”

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