Takeaways from the 1st week of Ohio State preseason practice

We got to watch the first three practices of Ohio State football’s 2025 preseason last week.

In this case, “we” is both the media and fans who paid for the privilege to line the edges of the practice fields at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Neither group is likely to be asked back between now and the end of the season, but it was a worthwhile experience I would say.

I hesitate to draw too many conclusions, especially since they were only in pads one of the days, but I might as well try to make some sense of it right?

I think No. 1 would be Ohio State is definitely not lacking in athleticism. Not that that comes as a surprise, but you know you don’t wanna take it for granted, right?

Lots of young guys who haven’t been there very long are hoping to show their stuff while some older guys who have been blocked or not quite found their niche yet really might be ready to go now. That will be especially interesting on defense where the Buckeyes lost eight starters.

The quarterbacks really were hard to evaluate because of the vantage point of the media, but neither Julian Sayin or Lincoln Kienholz looked particularly great or bad.

The biggest question on the team is defensive tackle, and you really can’t evaluate that unless they’re going full-speed, but they certainly have enough bodies without having to hope for the best with freshmen forced into the fray. That said, some of the younger edge guys were part of the rotation.

The offensive line, with four guys who started last year (Carson Hinzman, Austin Siereveld, Tegra Tshabola and Luke Montgomery) back and Rice transfer Ethan Onianwa forming the first unit, should be solid at worse and could end up being a strength. Continuing to accentuate their strengths by leaning into a more diverse running scheme would also help, and there was indication they are going to do just that under new line coach Tyler Bowen.

No surprise but the high floor is evident for every position, including quarterback , and the ceiling is pretty high at the skill positions and in the secondary.

Could mitigate how much they really need the quarterbacks to be great? Ryan Day is saying again he doesn’t need his quarterback to be Justin Fields or C.J. Stroud as long as they can make the right plays at the right time, but he also said that the past two seasons. They ended up leaning heavily on Kyle McCord two years ago, in large part because the offensive line wasn’t good enough for the running game to be reliable, and last year Will Howard was much more than a caretaker QB, especially in the playoffs.

If Sayin or Kienholz could be McCord without the crippling errors, would that be enough for Ohio State to make the playoff and even win it all again? Probably, though they’re called “crippling” errors for a reason. One or two plays can swing a game even when the QB is otherwise solid.

I think it is safe to say the defense will not be as good as it was last year, but that might be OK. The offense, which really was kind of blah through most of the regular season in part because of the line having injuries, really has room to be a lot better even with a caretaker quarterback.

Jeremiah Smith is the type of receiver who can take over games (even if he can’t got to the grocery in peace), but they appear to have a strong trio (at least) behind him in Carnell Tate, Brandon Inniss and Mylan Graham.

At running back, Ohio State looks more than fine with sophomore James Peoples and West Virginia transfer C.J. Donaldson, and tight end might be deeper than it’s been in years with Purdue transfer Max Klare adding a major receiving threat to a solid group consisting of Will Kacmarek, Bennett Christian and Jelani Thurman.

Whatever Matt Patricia wants to do with the defense, raw talent shouldn’t be a limiting factor. They have the guys to play man on the outside, athleticism at linebacker and the ultimate chess piece in Caleb Downs, who can line up at all three safety spots and more or less played middle linebacker at times last season.

They may be limited in game-breakers at end and 3-technique (or Kenyatta Jackson and Eddrick Houston might be enough), but there are ways to scheme around that, too. I would rather see them do that than rely too heavily on raw talent, as Ohio State has done far too often defensively over the last decade-plus.

OK, that’s all for now, but I wanted to say thank you to everyone who has subscribed so far to my new newsletter! I’m still putting the plane together as I fly it, but it’s been fun so far writing it. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading, and please don’t hesitate to share with anyone else you think might like another source of sports perspective for the Buckeyes and Southwest Ohio.

And if you want to see more from the first two practices, check out my YouTube channel while also being sure to follow me on Twitter (which is called X for some reason now).

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