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2027 four-star offensive tackle Brody McNeel commits to Ohio State.
Right guard, right guard, right guard.
It’s Week 13 of college football season, and discussion still swirls around what Ohio State is doing at right guard. Last Saturday’s game against UCLA only threw a new wrench into the saga, even if in a good way: Gabe VanSickle. The redshirt freshman ended up with more snaps than the Buckeyes’ starter, Tegra Tshabola, 44 to 26. Eleven of VanSickle’s snaps came with the second-team, but even when the 1s were on the field, he saw more action than Tshabola, 33 snaps to 26.
VanSickle played one series with the first team against Purdue following an injury to the usual backup right guard, Joshua Padilla, sustained during Ohio State’s previous game against Penn State. But things were clearly taken to another level vs. the Bruins.
“Solid,” Day said of VanSickle’s play on Tuesday. “That was his first real action, and I thought there was good snaps there. And you can see the talent. You can see the bend. You can see the power. He looks like he belongs. So now he's going to start stacking some games here.”
It will be hard to get many answers to what exactly Ohio State’s right guard rotation looks like until Padilla returns. What’s clear is that the Buckeyes want to split reps between Tshabola and somebody, however. Day made that clear in the wake of more inconsistencies from Tshabola, a running theme for his career, during the Purdue game.
But how much is the lean? And on who? VanSickle impressed in the UCLA game, generating plenty of movement. Padilla has had his moments. The Buckeyes aren’t rolling three players at the spot, though.
“We probably want to keep it to two,” Day said. “I guess if the snap count got really high, we could do that (rotate three). But we probably want to keep it to two guys.”
The right configuration is crucial to sustain the growth in the ground game that the offensive line showed against UCLA. Ohio State rushed for 222 yards at a rate of 6.7 yards per carry, both its best marks in Big Ten play. Though that does come with the caveat that the Bruins are among the nation’s worst run defenses, ranked 123rd in rushing yards allowed per game (194.2) and 131st in yards allowed per carry (5.2). The Buckeyes’ next opponent, Rutgers, is the only Big Ten team ranked lower in both of those statistics.
“I thought there was a lot of physicality,” Day said. “I see Carson Hinzman had nine knockdowns in the game. I mean, it's hard to knock a trash can down nine times. Like, that's a heck of a job. I thought guys were finishing downfield. There were some clips of guys finishing people out of bounds. Running backs are running through contact. People are finishing. It was a good Sunday to watch effort and physicality and fundamentals, because we know that's going to matter in the end.”
A few of Ohio State’s offensive linemen even graded out as champions by coaches, the threshold for which has been raised from an 80% to an 83% rate of winning one’s assignment this November.
“I don't want to get into it all, but yeah,” Day said of players grading out champions. “And some of those guys were on the O-line, which, there's nowhere to hide in the offensive line, unless maybe there's a naked (bootleg), or a quick screen or something like that. But other than that, you're graded to a high level. And Coach (Tyler) Bowen is very particular and critiques those guys at a high level.”
Still, questions will remain at right guard until a rotation is found that works against quality competition. The next game that fills that description is in 11 days in Ann Arbor.
