Ohio State Football Notebook: 'He's on a structured course to greatness'

Staying The Course

The biggest question mark for the Ohio State defense coming into this season was the situation at linebacker. Fifth-year senior middle linebacker Cody Simon was the only known quantity. Junior Sonny Styles was making the move from safety to linebacker, and CJ Hicks was finally going to compete for a starting job after being a backup his first two years. Behind them were players who had done even less at the position.

How have things gone so far at the position according to defensive coordinator Jim Knowles?

“Overall, in general, pleased,” he said on Tuesday. “They know the system. They operate. They can make checks. See things happen before they happen. I think they’ve been matching up pretty well in pass coverage. I think we’ve been doing a more advanced job there. Just get better at tackling.”

Have to get better at tackling? Isn’t this an “Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?” kind of situation?

“It’s a science that you never practice live,” Knowles said. “Even when you make the tackle, is it three [yards] or is it five? Because that leads to the third and ones, twos and threes that make it difficult. I think it’s just the tackling and how to continue to get more physical tackles, speed of the game tackles, while also still taking care of them at the same time during practice.”

Perhaps the best tackler among the linebackers so far this season has been sophomore Arvell Reese. Reese is Simon’s backup at middle linebacker and is currently third on the team in tackles (12), behind safety Lathan Ransom (19) and Styles (17). Reese also leads the linebackers with 2.0 tackles for loss.

Reese has continued to rotate into the game because he has earned the playing time. Knowles was asked if perhaps Reese could move to the Will spot to create even more rotation.

“No, it’s not an option,” Knowles said. “I mean, with Arvell, he’s on a structured course to greatness, so he’s climbing that step by step. So you don’t want to throw anything — don’t throw a monkey wrench in there.”

After not playing a snap on defense as a true freshman last year while dealing with a position move to defensive end and a concussion, Knowles finally saw the light start to come on for Reese last month in camp.

But there’s still work to be done.

“It’s a flashing light. Blinking light,” Knowles said. “So we’re just trying to get that thing to stay on consistently.”

On Guards

The Buckeyes were without starting left guard Donovan Jackson for the first two games of the season. In his place was redshirt freshman Austin Siereveld, who played very well and even exceeded expectations by most.

With Jackson back last week against Marshall, it was determined that Siereveld still needed to play, so he rotated in some at right guard with starter Tegra Tshabola. Asked on Tuesday if that rotation could continue throughout the season, Day didn’t hesitate to answer.

“Yeah, I think both of those guys deserve to play. I mentioned that last week, and they both did,” he said. “We’ll continue to evaluate it and grade it and make sure, but we all know we’re going to need these guys. And that’s the thing, whether it’s TreVeyon [Henderson] and Quinshon [Judkins] or Austin and Tegra, these guys are team players and they want to win. That’s the number one thing here. It isn’t about statistics or anything like that.”

The Buckeyes will have plenty of snaps to spread around this season per Day, and this weekend against Michigan State will pose a bigger threat. It is a new challenge that will provide more information on just how far this rotation will continue. But with Siereveld being a redshirt freshman and Tshabola being a redshirt sophomore, and with both combining now for just five career starts, there is also a benefit to giving them each a break throughout the game.

“I think giving both of them a chance to catch their breath for a series or two is actually a good thing for a young player,” Day said. “So we look at that during the week. We’ll rotate those guys during the week so that there’s chemistry between Josh Fryar, Seth [McLaughlin], and both of those guys when they’re in there. And I think when you practice that way and then you play that way, there isn’t all of a sudden this chemistry issue or anything like that.

“As long as whoever’s not in the game is really focused in, seeing the plays on a tablet, seeing the adjustments in real time, I think that’s good. And I do think that is a benefit to having a tablet is although they’re not in there getting the rep, they can actually see what happened in the last series and make any kind of adjustments that are going on in-game.”

The Backup Plan

The Buckeyes had a well-publicized quarterback battle in the preseason that was ultimately won by Kansas State transfer Will Howard. That left redshirt sophomore Devin Brown as Ohio State’s backup.

Brown, who started last year’s Cotton Bowl before leaving the game due to injury, has played in all three games this season. One game after going 5-for-5 passing against Western Michigan, however, Brown completed just 2-of-6 passes in OSU’s 49-14 win over Marshall last week.

Buckeye head coach was asked this week to assess Brown’s performance against the Herd.

“The third-down conversion was good. He did miss a couple throws. Probably not as much in the game to really make a huge evaluation on it, but every play is an evaluation,” he said. “We’re trying to build that depth and so the development has to keep coming in practice. When we get in there in a game, we want to move the ball down the field and score touchdowns.”

So far this season Brown has led the Buckeyes on five drives, but only one has ended in a touchdown.

Given the talent in the quarterback room currently — which also features true freshman Air Noland losing his black stripe this week, Day was asked if Brown is still firmly the Buckeyes’ backup quarterback.

“I mean, guys are competing every day in practice. He would be our number two right now,” he said. “But yeah, I mean, that’s across the board. Everyone’s got an opportunity to compete. There’s five guys in that room that want to get out there, and so to say they’re not competing every day wouldn’t be right for them. They’ve got to come and bring it. So we’ll have opportunities this week in practice to evaluate them and kind of see where we go, but right now he is our two.”