COLUMBUS, Ohio — With baseball season in full swing, Ohio State football is rounding third base and heading home at spring practice. The Buckeyes will host their annual spring game this Saturday at Ohio Stadium, but even Urban Meyer knows there's only so much he'll be able to take away from it.
"Spring ball must not be very interesting," the Ohio State head coach said as he made note of a smaller-than-usual media contingent at his Monday press conference. "And I agree with you."
That doesn't mean this spring—or this Saturday, for that matter—won't wind up being valuable to the Buckeyes as they embark on their defense of the national title. Although plenty of experience returns from a year ago, Meyer is still breaking in some fresh faces and will use this Saturday as a way to gauge who he can count on.
"The thing that spring games give you at a place like Ohio State is a crowd," Meyer said. "A lot of times you'll see a player that comes out [on the practice field] when no one's around and plays well and then he goes out in front of a crowd and locks up. And that's real...I can't say it's going to be pleasant all the time, because you're going to have some young guys who aren't quite ready to play yet."
Spring Starters
With 14 combined starters returning on offense and defense from a season ago, the Buckeyes entered spring practice with only eight starting spots—quarterback aside—up for grabs. And while there's still time between now and the start of the season for circumstances to change, most of those vacancies appear to have been filled.
Right tackle Chase Farris, wide receiver Noah Brown, defensive end Tyquan Lewis, defensive tackle Tommy Schutt, linebacker Raekwon McMillan and cornerback Gareon Conley will each leave spring football with significant edges in their respective races to replace the starting seniors from last season's championship squad. The other two openings come at tight end, where senior Nick Vannett is a lock to replace Jeff Heuerman, and wide receiver, which will be filled by a shift of personnel.
"A lot of guys get the mentality that, 'I'll go get the job in August,'" Meyer said. "A spot in August is already done and we're trying to go win a football game."
Of course the irony of that mentality is that the Buckeyes' most important position battle won't be settled until the start of fall camp at the earliest. With J.T. Barrett and Braxton Miller still recovering from their respective injuries, neither will be able to fully compete with Cardale Jones for the starting quarterback job until the summer—although Barrett has already gotten somewhat of a head start.
"I don't know who our quarterback's going to be," Meyer admitted on Monday. "We're exactly where we need to be. At the end of spring practice we've gotten J.T. Barrett a billion reps, probably more than I thought we'd get him [coming off a fractured ankle]. Cardale didn't have a particularly great day today but he's had a good spring and we're getting him as many reps as we can. And Braxton's getting healthy."
Although Barrett may be ahead of schedule, he will not be participating in this Saturday's spring game. The only two scholarship signal-callers who will be on the field will be Jones and redshirt freshman Stephen Collier, with college football's biggest quarterback battle of the offseason yet to truly take form.
Dominant D-Line?
While the losses from last season's national title team are minimal, one unit that has been undergoing somewhat of an overhaul in Columbus this spring has been the Buckeyes defensive line. Gone are defensive tackle Michael Bennett, who is expected to be a second-to-third-round pick in the upcoming draft, and the combination of Steve Miller and Rashad Frazier, meaning that Ohio State will be replacing half of its starting defensive line this season.
The half that is returning for the Buckeyes, however, happens to be pretty good, with defensive end Joey Bosa and defensive tackle Adolphus Washington reclaiming their starting spots from a year ago. Neither of the 2016 NFL prospects has seen significant snaps this spring, having little left to prove to Meyer and defensive line coach Larry Johnson, but both have stated a desire to make the most out of this offseason.
"Not much physical reps, but me and Adolphus have been down working with [graduate assistant] Vince [Oghobaase] and Coach Johnson on bags, so we've definitely been getting our work this past week," Bosa said. "We've been doing a lot more contact, so we've definitely been getting back in the swing of it."
As for the openings, Schutt and Lewis will enter fall camp as the front-runners to replace Bennett and Lewis. A former 4-star prospect, Schutt has provided depth on the Buckeyes defensive line for each of the past three seasons but now appears ready to take hold of a starting spot.
As for Lewis, the redshirt sophomore has been one of the more pleasant surprises for Ohio State this spring, after only seeing limited action in 2014. As opposed to the platoon of Miller and Frazier, which was steady but not spectacular, the 6'4", 260-pounder offers a dynamic skill set that could especially shine with the amount of attention offensive lines are forced to pay to Bosa on the opposite side.
"He's doing an unbelievable job this spring, just out there killing it, going hard every day," Bosa said of Lewis. "I'm excited to have another end like that on the other side."
In addition to Schutt and Lewis, Sam Hubbard, Jalyn Holmes and Joel Hale have all been mentioned by coaches and teammates as defensive linemen who are having big springs for the Buckeyes. According to Meyer, the plan is to rotate 10 players on the unit, a goal that now appears attainable, as opposed to a year ago.
"Last year we didn't feel too comfortable with putting some backups in," Bosa admitted. "This year's a completely different feel. We have a bunch of guys ready to go."
Receivers Ready
Much like the Ohio State defensive line, the Buckeyes wide receiving corps will also feature a new look this fall. Gone are Devin Smith and Evan Spencer, starters for the better part of each of the past two seasons, replaced by a talented albeit inexperienced group that has only seen its reps increased with the absence of Michael Thomas, who is recovering from sports hernia surgery.
Brown, a 6'2", 222-pound sophomore by way of Sparta, New Jersey, has stood out as the best of the bunch thus far.
"Noah Brown has had as good of a spring as I could have wanted," Ohio State wide receivers coach Zach Smith said. "He's dropped 25 pounds, and he's on a different level than he was in the fall. I'm really, really pleased with where he's at."
With the Buckeyes opting to showcase his ability as a run-blocker even a year ago, Brown appears to be a natural fit to replace Spencer, who was known for his do-it-all nature. As for replacing Smith, who led the nation in yards per catch with a 28.2 average, OSU has been experimenting with shifting H-Back Jalin Marshall from the slot to the outside, at least in the spring.
In Marshall's absence at H-Back, the Buckeyes have turned to Curtis Samuel, who spent his freshman season in 2015 backing up Ezekiel Elliott at running back. Samuel, however, has emerged as one of Ohio State's top playmakers this spring, and Meyer has vowed to get him on the field for 40-50 plays per game this fall.
"Curtis is really talented. Curtis could play a lot of different spots," Smith said. "He's been meeting in my room as we just try to saturate him at this position."
While it's currently a temporary setup, keeping Marshall on the outside could become permanent if Samuel proves to be the Buckeyes' best option at H-Back. What's promising is the number of options Ohio State appears to have, as despite its departures it appears to only be adding options.
"We had to go get more people that fit [our] type of system because we wanted to spread the field horizontally," Meyer said. "That's the Jalin Marshall-, Dontre Wilson-, Curtis Samuel-type player. We're still looking for more."
Ben Axelrod is Bleacher Report's Big Ten Lead Writer. You can follow him on Twitter @BenAxelrod. Unless noted otherwise, all quotes were obtained firsthand. All statistics courtesy of CFBStats.com. Recruiting rankings courtesy of 247Sports.
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