← The Bill and Doug Show: Ohio State Football Talk
The Bill and Doug Show: Ohio State Football Talk
Ohio State offensive line grades: Is this Buckeye line better than last year & more right guard talk
00:37:15
The Ohio State offensive line is next up as Bill Landis and Doug Lesmerises break down every position group for the Buckeyes before their first playoff game in the Cotton Bowl.
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- [00:00]
Doug Lesmerises
The College Football Playoff is everything.
- [00:03]
College Football Playoff Announcer
Toughness, growth, sacrifices. Life's your focus. This is where I think everything you got all day today.
- [00:09]
Bill Landis
The attention to detail is like none other.
- [00:12]
College Football Playoff Announcer
Be physical. Be playing. We are the winners. Tulane takes on Ole Miss, followed by James Madison in Oregon.
- [00:19]
Doug Lesmerises
It's time to bring it first round.
- [00:20]
College Football Playoff Announcer
Coverage of the college football playoffs presented by allstate Saturday at 3:30 Eastern on TNT and HBO. Max, are you ready? Let's get em.
- [00:30]
Clorox Toilet Wand Advertiser
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- [00:37]
Doug Lesmerises
Hey, what does all in one mean?
- [00:40]
Clorox Toilet Wand Advertiser
The caddy, the wand, the preloaded pad. There's a cleaner in there inside the pad.
- [00:47]
Doug Lesmerises
So Clorox toilet wand is all I need to clean a toilet.
- [00:51]
Clorox Toilet Wand Advertiser
You don't need a bottle of solution to get into this toilet revolution. Clorox clean feels good. Use as directed.
- [01:00]
College Football Playoff Announcer
Foreign.
- [01:07]
Doug Lesmerises
Welcome back to the Bill and Doug Show. Offensive line position breakdowns continue here on the Bill and Doug Show. We've done special teams, we've done safeties. Offensive line is today, which means you're going to hear a lot from Bill Landis and far less from me. But also Bill, when we did safeties, we just did like, oh, man. Jalen McClain and Caleb Downs. What else do you want? We got five guys to talk about. So I don't know if sometimes we hear from people who play the show at 1.2 times speed. We have to provide information at 1.2 times speed because we got five guys to talk about. Then we don't only want to talk about right guard. Right?
- [01:43]
Bill Landis
No, I don't think so because there's actually, there's a lot, there's a lot to talk about with each guy. So yeah, we'll, we'll, we'll get through all five and then a little bit of what's going on in the future too.
- [01:52]
Doug Lesmerises
Okay, Can I ask you one question off the, off the jump here, please? Going into the playoff, would you rather have this year's offensive line or last year's offensive line the way it was going into the playoff? Which means no Josh simmons, no Seth McLaughlin.
- [02:09]
Bill Landis
This year's. Okay.
- [02:11]
Doug Lesmerises
Telling you it's important to start there.
- [02:13]
Bill Landis
Can I.
- [02:13]
Doug Lesmerises
And can I just give you one more thing I did, like, if things fall out of your head, but I was just looking at. Pff. These were the snaps at left guard last year by person. Can we just refresh ourselves on this? Left guard, Austin Seravel, 307 Donovan Jackson, 286. Luke Montgomery. 230, Carson Hinsman, 169.
- [02:33]
Bill Landis
Those are the days.
- [02:37]
Doug Lesmerises
How do they win a national title?
- [02:38]
Bill Landis
It's not ideal, right? Because I actually wonder, like, if, like, I answered that question pretty quickly. Right. And I wonder if people will be like, what are you talking about? It's like they were, they were in a terrible spot last year. They were playing Donovan Jackson out of position and they had like, no experience at the left guard position. And, and you know, I think people at the time were a little uncertain about Josh Fryer. You were probably thinking that Carson Hinsman looked better at guard than he looked at center. So it was, it was far from a secure situation. I'm not saying, like, this one is, is excellent, but Ohio State goes into the playoff with starting five that started 12 of 13 games. That's pretty good. Yeah.
- [03:16]
Doug Lesmerises
Last year, the national championship game, Donovan Jackson at left tackle, out of position, Luke. And then it's the same guys as this year. It was Luke Montgomery at left guard, Carson Hinsman at center. Then Tegar Shabola and Austin Seravel splitting right guard, Tegra 37 snaps against Notre Dame in the national championship game. Austin Serel, 27. And then Josh Fryer. So it's like, what would you rather have? It's like, I don't know. The middle three guys are the same, but they're a year more experienced this year. Right. And so it's, it's quite a thing. But we're not talking last year, we're talking this year. So, like, where are we? Landis, the floor is yours.
- [03:52]
Bill Landis
Boy, there's a lot of places, like, I think so. There's a written component to this too, that we're doing over on the sub stack page. And like, we have the heading, like, what happened this year? And like, I think my first sentence, just like, it's complicated because I do, I do think there are some things to like about this year's offensive line. I would say by and large, they've been pretty good pass protection wise. I don't know that.
- [04:14]
Doug Lesmerises
Actually.
- [04:14]
Bill Landis
There's a ton to talk about there, unless you want to talk about the specificity of right guard, which we will certainly get to. But you know, they have not given up a ton of sacks. And as we detailed on a different show, like, not all the sacks that gave up against Indiana, I thought were attributable to the offensive line. There's a pro football focus pass blocking efficiency grade. They're 19th. They've been better in past years, but 19th is still pretty good. It's more, it's more run game. It's more you know, just maybe like overall development kind of stuff. But I, I do think there are some guys who have played well like Austin Sarah about things played great especially considering ask what he's been doing what he's been asked to do right. If you I pulled the the PFF overall grades again. It's just one way to look at it. 264 Power Four offensive linemen have played at least 600 snaps this year and overall great Servelt's eighth. Like he's been. He's been really good. He was only second team all Big Ten and probably won't be an all American, but he's been at least by that metric like a top 10 national offensive lineman this year. Playing out of position, he's probably not quite that good if I'm being honest about it, but he's easily sort of top 20, top 25 playing the wrong position playing tackle instead of guard. And Luke Montgomery's 33rd in that metric. Not, not terrible. Carson Hinsman's 59th. And then you get much farther down the list of Philip Daniels at 106 and way down the list out of 264. Tiger Chabot was 238. And we know that that's been the problem spot. But I think the, the, the, the difficult thing I guess is that like the, the highs maybe have not been super high. The highs have just sort of been like, oh yeah, that's a pretty good offensive line and the lows have been very low. Like there's just been some, some pretty inconsistent, glaringly bad snaps, primarily from right guard. But I also think like at times sort of across the board that that don't inspire a ton of confidence. So I like writing it and even talking about it now. I do, I do find it to be a pretty like, complex position to try to analyze on the whole.
- [06:23]
Doug Lesmerises
I don't know that, especially as you said in pass protection that we've sat here this season and thought, man, that guy is getting smoked every snap by the guy across from him. He just is losing one on one battles constantly. It's been a little bit, especially with four of the five positions, right? It's been a little bit more of like, oh, that was a weird snap where the guy just got completely rocked because the 19 snaps before it he seemed really good and then his feet got bad or his technique was bad and he leaned too far and all of a sudden he got beat on that play. But then it went back to Normal or, boy, there was a stunt and they didn't pick it up. Right. But it's not, especially at tackle, even with Daniels. Right, who hasn't been perfect. It's not like a game where you just feel like pass rushers are bludgeoning guys in individual matchups for two thirds of a game.
- [07:19]
Bill Landis
Is that. No. Yeah, no, I think that's right. The stuff that has given Ohio State, you know, a snap here, snap there, sure, you can pick a starter, you can go find a snap where it just looks like, boy, that was one on one and that guy kind of got his butt whipped. But it doesn't. I would say that doesn't happen with a ton of regularity. It's more schematic stuff that I think that the offensive line struggles with, whether that's like, slanting of the defensive line or some of the stunts you mentioned, some of the, like, simulated pressures that Indiana was running where guys drop out, another guy rushes from death like that, like that kind of stuff. It's not sort of like, individually, you're just not a very good player. I. I think maybe, maybe the closest guy to that would. Would be Tegra. But it's funny, like, if you look at pressures allowed, Luke Montgomery, Carson Hensman and Philip Daniels have all allowed more pressures. Integra, Shabola, Daniels and Hinsman have allowed 15. Montgomery's allowed 13. Tigers allowed 12. Integra, according to PFF, has only allowed one sack. The starting offensive line collectively has only allowed five. Saravelt hasn't allowed any. Now, part of that is a credit to Julian saying because he's good at getting the ball out of his hand or, or slightly avoiding pressure or just throwing it away, whatever it takes to avoid a sack. But, yeah, I don't. I think we've seen the. Probably, probably the most glaring example of an offensive line who. Or offensive lineman who's just sort of like repeatedly getting beat is like, probably like Isaiah Prince back, Back in the day. I don't. I don't know that we see a whole lot of that happening when it comes to pass protection. It's just. It's more like a collective effort sometimes when things tend to break down. And when that happens, it's usually more often than not on the right side of the line.
- [08:57]
Doug Lesmerises
And the hard thing. And again, in saying that, it's complicated. It hasn't been linear, it hasn't been a progression where it was like, oh, they started off a little slow, then they got better and better and better. And even like, here we are, arguably Best game of the year against Michigan and then one of the worst games of the year against Indiana.
- [09:16]
Bill Landis
Yeah, probably. And this was a line too that probably like around the start of October there were some people like involved with the Joe Moore Award who were reporting out Ohio State's offensive line. I think Cole Kublick, who's like heavily involved with that, is an SEC analyst one time in the year, said like, Ohio State's offensive line is the most fun offensive line to watch in the country.
- [09:38]
Doug Lesmerises
Yeah.
- [09:39]
Bill Landis
And then they just like they were, yeah, they were nasty against Ohio. Right. They were nasty against, against Grambling and like, you know, given a tough task against Texas, I thought, I thought more or less kind of held their own in that game.
- [09:53]
Doug Lesmerises
Colin Simmons, we thought it was like, oh man, Sim is going to destroy Ohio State. It's like, no, he didn't, he didn't have a sack.
- [09:59]
Bill Landis
Yeah. And then, and then teams just started attacking them a little differently. It kind of started like with Illinois and Wisconsin, Penn State, even a little bit right there. Just wasn't like there was that moment where it's like, boy, this offensive line could be really good and people are starting to notice it. And then there wasn't an elevation from there. There were moments after that where they, they played better, but then they would come back down the earth and it was just like you said, not linear really at all. I still, you know, give them credit for playing their best game against Michigan. That's, that's the game in the regular season that matters the most to Ohio State. But, and then Indiana gave him a lot of problems. But, but again, like I think in the problems Indiana gave them were, were a lot of schematic stuff. It wasn't like Indian. Indiana does have a very good defensive line and there were certainly some one on one battles there, but I think it was more of just like the way they attacked Ohio State than it was Ohio State not being like up to the challenge of blocking those guys sort of on an individual basis. So maybe there's something to be learned from that experience as they go into the playoff and we'll play good, good defenses with good defensive lines and good schemes consistently as they weren't doing in the regular season. But yeah, I, I'm not really worried much at all. Well, I guess I shouldn't say that. I think they'll be okay pass protection wise in the postseason. I'm a little more curious about the run game side of things because that's, that's where the inconsistencies I think have Popped up more.
- [11:19]
Doug Lesmerises
So what do you think that is? Because again, then, you know, the nastiness. I think that probably that Luke Montgomery and Philip Daniels are the two nastiest boys on the offensive line. When we talk about that kind of attitude.
- [11:29]
Bill Landis
Yeah, yeah.
- [11:30]
Doug Lesmerises
But also, like, you don't want to be Mac Nasty. It's like, oh, man, that guy is Mac Nasty. It's like, well, yeah, Mac Nasty. Like, when. How's time to go? Wouldn't you then think, like, if it's okay, like, they're gonna assert their will in the run game and get nasty and, and pile drive guys into the ground? Like, why is it that maybe the performance in the run game isn't what you would expect?
- [11:56]
Bill Landis
Yeah, well, I, I feel like when. When the defenders are where they expect them to be, they are. They do kind of play that way. Whatever. What was the number Ryan Day said about knockdowns against Michigan? It was like 43, 40 something, right? Yeah, yeah. Now that can be a pass protection too. But that's, That's a run game thing, right? And I just, like, if I'm recalling the game correctly, Michigan was not doing a bunch of like, stunting and slanting and all that stuff. And I think more or less those guys were just sort of. You draw it up on the whiteboard. This guy's here. You move him here and it's like, oh, wow, that guy's there. I guess I will move him there. And, And I don't know, like that, that doesn't happen when you play Indiana. That didn't happen when they played Lake Wisconsin. Right. I think it happened a little less frequently when they played a team like Penn State. Although, Although ultimately High State ran it. Ran it pretty well in the end in that game. It's more of a. It's. It's technical. Yes. And Ryan Day has talked about that. But I think it's also, I don't know, like, like preparation and communication maybe that I think sometimes gets. Gets them in a. In the bind more than anything else. I, I would say, like, yeah, I know there's some people who aren't super thrilled with, like, the job that Tyler Bowen has done. And I think if you believe that, the thing you could probably point to is just like, sometimes they look like they, they play like they don't know what they're seeing from a defensive front when they're trying to run the ball or pick up a pass protection, but I think primarily run up, run the ball. Like they, they just find themselves sort of mis. Targeted quite a bit when they're playing teams that tend to move around a lot. Like that's the point of moving around a lot. I understand that. But this is an offensive line now that I would consider to be like pretty veteran and, and they should be, they should be starting to turn the corner, if not sort of having turned that corner already. And maybe they will in the postseason. But that's the kind of stuff that I find the most frustrating when I watch them. It's just like they're just misaligned sometimes when they're trying to run the ball.
- [13:52]
Doug Lesmerises
But like, how likely do you think that is? We talk about elevating in the postseason. Could this offensive line elevate in the postseason? Is that on the table in a realistic way?
- [14:02]
Bill Landis
Yeah, I think so. They play together so much because I, I think they elevated last year. Right. And, and that was. They were holding it together with, you know, paper clips and duct tape, trying to get five out there. That worked. And, and I think they're healthier now than they were then. There's the one issue at right guard, but I think there's been enough good play from the other four spots for me to think that, yeah, they can elevate a little bit with, with some time to kind of digest the season with some time to assess how they were attacked by Indiana, which I'm sure teams will try to replicate now moving forward. So yeah, I think, I think the, the, the floor is, is higher than it was last year and I think because of like the health situation and the experience situation that the ceiling could be a little higher than it was last year in the postseason.
- [14:52]
Doug Lesmerises
2.
- [14:57]
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- [15:50]
Doug Lesmerises
The College Football Playoff is everything. Toughness, roles, sacrifices, life to focus.
- [15:56]
College Football Playoff Announcer
This is where i50 everything you got all damn day.
- [16:00]
Bill Landis
The attention to detail is like none other.
- [16:05]
College Football Playoff Announcer
Chilean takes on Ole Miss followed by James Madison in Oregon.
- [16:09]
Doug Lesmerises
It's time to Bring it.
- [16:10]
College Football Playoff Announcer
First round coverage on the College Football Football Playoff presented by allstate Saturday at 3:30 Eastern on TNT and HBO. Max, are you ready?
- [16:24]
Doug Lesmerises
So you would take this offensive line over last year's offensive line once the injuries hit?
- [16:30]
Bill Landis
Yeah, right.
- [16:30]
Doug Lesmerises
We established that. How about 2023? Yeah, 2023. Josh Simmons figuring it out at left tackle, first year at Ohio State. Donovan Jackson at left guard. Carson Hinsman, first year starter at Cent. Did not go great because he was kind of thrown in there because they thought Luke Whipler would stay and he went to the NFL. Matthew Jones at right guard, Josh Fryer at right tackle. Because I remember like, in that year that was like. And then Donovan Jackson, like, maybe wasn't playing great because Donovan Jackson was playing in between two guys and Josh Simmons and Carson Hinsman, who hadn't really done it before. Would you take this line over that line?
- [17:03]
Bill Landis
I think I would.
- [17:05]
Doug Lesmerises
I think I would, too.
- [17:07]
Bill Landis
Yeah. I. I would say that's like Sarah Veld at left tackle is probably about as good as Simmons was in year one at Ohio State. Hensman is better than he was two years ago at center. I think, you know, Donovan Jackson was probably a little better than Luke Montgomery, but I don't know that he was like, you know, worlds better than Luke Montgomery is playing right now in that particular season. And I, you know, Phil Daniels and Josh Friar, I think, like, have similar limitations, but Daniels, honestly, like, seems to have played fairly well since he kind of set that one game out. So he seems like he's on a bit of an upward trajectory too. So I think I would take this group.
- [17:49]
Doug Lesmerises
So. And then like, 22, you take the 2022 line. Paris Johnson, left tackle. Donovan Jackson, left guard. Luke Whiplart, center. Matthew Jones, Matthew Jones, right guard. Dwan Jones at right tackle. So I think, like, yeah, just the point of like, okay, like, well, that was like. It's like, well, Paris is a top 10 pick and Duan Jones is an NFL guy and Luke Whippler is an NFL guy and Donovan Jackson is an NFL guy. Right. So we're just making the point that even against the. The best comparison for Ohio State is always itself. This is actually probably where we are right now. At the end of the regular season, you'd take this line over what you had the last two years. So I think that's important to point out. As, as we graded this line. Did you go position? We graded on a scale of 1 to 100 with the substack subscribers. And just, by the way, quick aside, wouldn't you want to come hang out with us over on Substack? We got some stuff popping. We have a little poll. We have a bowl pool. We have a playoff bracket pool. You said you're going to give away. You have an Arvell Reese autograph card that you're going to give away as a prize, Is that right?
- [18:47]
Bill Landis
I do. Yeah. I don't have it handy right now behind me on my shelf. Yeah, I'm gonna give that to the winner of the bull, the ESPN bowl pool. Yeah.
- [18:55]
Doug Lesmerises
How about that Lindros doll? You want to give the Lindros doll to somebody? No.
- [18:58]
Bill Landis
I don't know. No. There's a Die Hard Flyers fan, maybe.
- [19:02]
Doug Lesmerises
Yeah, I'm just giving away.
- [19:03]
Bill Landis
You know what I can give away? This, this helmet behind me, that Ohio State helmet on the shelf is autographed by C.J. hicks. You just. The autographs on the other side.
- [19:11]
Doug Lesmerises
You know what I was getting worried about?
- [19:12]
Bill Landis
That could be a prize.
- [19:13]
Doug Lesmerises
I thought you're about to give away my dragon statue right there myself.
- [19:18]
Bill Landis
You can have the painting of my, my son did of his footprint looking like a bumblebee if you want that too. Or butterfly.
- [19:24]
Doug Lesmerises
Yeah. And, and he'll sign it. So come on over. Like come and hang out. That's for Substack subscribers. We're doing these breakdowns. We're doing written breakdowns of this. We're writing other things. We're going to do our Wednesday pod for Substack subscribers only. Another ranking of the top 22 Buckeyes, which we've, we've done it three times this year. We'll do it a fourth time. We do a bunch of like, you know, subscribers send us questions anyway. Bill and Doug osu.substack.com you got to pay, but also like give it to yourself as a gift for the holidays. Give it to a family member for a gift for the holidays. Bill and Doug osu.substack.com and also great gift. Roback.com I don't know. I don't understand shipping. I don't know when you're watching this, when you're listening to this, but probably get on the horse. Let's go. Let's get over to Roback right now. Classy, casual, upscale, still supporting your team. You go to their game day collection. Roback.com R, H, O, B A, C, K hoodies, polos, all kinds of good gear. Use the code BAD20@roback.com use the code BAD20. Get 20 off your first order. When you thought about your 1 to 100 ranking for the offensive line. Did you do each guy like 1 to 20 and then add it up? Just curious. Out of curiosity.
- [20:37]
Bill Landis
Oh, no, that would have been good. No, I just, like, I just picked the number.
- [20:40]
Doug Lesmerises
Okay.
- [20:42]
Bill Landis
I think about that. I'm gonna, I'm gonna ponder that as we continue talking and see if my score ended up being any different.
- [20:47]
Doug Lesmerises
Yeah, well, well, let me ask, can I give you how my scores for the individual five guys and see if you vastly disagree on a 1 to 20 scale, just like, kind of off the top of your head.
- [21:01]
Bill Landis
Sure.
- [21:02]
Doug Lesmerises
I gave Austin Saravel 19. Is that too high?
- [21:06]
Bill Landis
No, I don't think so.
- [21:09]
Doug Lesmerises
Like, he's the best guy. He's kind of the rock, you know, it's, it's hard. It's not his fault. Like, as a best guy. Like, is he as good as Paris Johnson? If Paris Johnson's your best guy.
- [21:20]
Bill Landis
Right.
- [21:21]
Doug Lesmerises
Is he as good as Taylor Decker? If Taylor Decker is your best guy, is he as good as Orlando Pace? If Orlando Pace is your best guy, it's like, no. And I actually think if the, if, if it is a, like a, Ooh. Like a really, really awesome Ohio State offensive line, probably. Saravel's a guard and your second best guy, and he's lined up next to like a.
- [21:42]
Bill Landis
Yes.
- [21:43]
Doug Lesmerises
A, A head cracking tackle. And then you're like, let's go to work. Right. But that's not about Austin Seravel, so. Austin Sarabel. Austin Saravel is the Donovan Jackson of last year. And we said Donovan Jackson's probably the playoff mvp. He's a guard who's playing tackle and then playing left tackle at a high level, even though it's not his natural position. And he's saving them.
- [22:03]
Bill Landis
He is saving them. Yeah. I, I just think he's played, he's played really well. It is. I, I. So we have, like, a written component to this. And I'll just say, like, I can. I compared Sarah Veld to Paris Johnson in a very specific way in the thing that I, that I wrote, because I, I do think there's a comparison to be made there. And I don't disagree at all that, that his natural position is guard. He'd be better if he was at a guard, but he's played really well at tackle. He's still been one of the best tackles in the country. Yeah. Okay.
- [22:36]
Doug Lesmerises
I gave Luke Montgomery A17. Is that too high?
- [22:43]
Bill Landis
I might. No, I think it's fair. I might go like 15, maybe. Okay.
- [22:49]
Doug Lesmerises
And then I gave Carson Hinsman a 16. Is that too high?
- [22:53]
Bill Landis
No, I think it'd be about the same place. I'd probably go 15, 16 with him, too.
- [22:58]
Doug Lesmerises
Okay, who's better? Who's at the better year? Montgomery at left guard or Henson?
- [23:02]
Bill Landis
He's been at center, probably Montgomery.
- [23:07]
Doug Lesmerises
Is it like game. Is it like game to game? Sometimes. Who has the better game?
- [23:11]
Bill Landis
Yeah, yeah, they do 10. It's not surprising. I think they do tend to sort of like, play better, like, together. Like, if one guy has a good game, usually they both have a good game kind of thing. But it can go game to game. I think that. I think Montgomery is probably like a touch more consistent. I would say he's slightly better. Yeah.
- [23:33]
Doug Lesmerises
I gave Philip Daniels a 14 at right tackle.
- [23:38]
Bill Landis
That's probably. I might go like 13. Okay. Yeah.
- [23:43]
Doug Lesmerises
And then right guard, I gave an eight out of 20.
- [23:48]
Bill Landis
Yeah, I'd be probably about there.
- [23:51]
Doug Lesmerises
Okay, so I'll say that then my total is 74 out of 100.
- [23:57]
Bill Landis
I'm adding mine up, adding up all.
- [23:59]
Doug Lesmerises
Of those.
- [24:02]
Bill Landis
Because I was slightly lower than you. Let's see, where did I end up with my scores?
- [24:09]
Doug Lesmerises
And I will just interject here to say that we do. We. We do a call out to our substack subscribers and have them all rate it from 1 to 100. And then I just. I do a thing. I don't really understand it, but on the spreadsheet, I Dr. And then the drag, like, puts everything in a box and then down at the bottom, the robot averages it. Yeah, it's an averaging robot. I don't know how they do it. I don't want that robot in my house. Stay in my computer robot. Do not come out of my spreadsheet. If you come out of my spreadsheet, I'm gonna punch you in your robot neck. So 565 from the subscribers.
- [24:43]
Bill Landis
So the scores I just did on the fly added up to a 70 in. But what I put a 71 when I put my actual average in. So I don't know, like, give maybe one more point to Montgomery or Daniels for me, and that would just.
- [24:57]
Doug Lesmerises
Or just a 71 for effort. How about a 71 just for. Just for effort. Little. Little extra one point. That's a Mac nasty extra bonus point right there. How about that?
- [25:06]
Bill Landis
I did you and I wonder if Tiger Shabola heavily influencing. I'm sure the 65. I also took into account, like the. The total whiff on Ethan Onyanwa. If you want to just think about the plan for the season and how it didn't go go the way they wanted it to. Like, I was probably more at like a 75 or 76, and then I docked some points off for that.
- [25:29]
Doug Lesmerises
That's, that's, that's smart. I don't know how to. Let's make sure we do this first. It can't only be a Tegra discussion. It is a big right guard discussion. We also don't know what the situation is going to be, you know, in the playoff at right guard. We had just generally expected ourselves that this is an opportunity with three and a half weeks to maybe make a change at right guard. There's certainly, again, like, there's Internet, like, rumors about what's going on there. If there's a change at right guard, you think that would be, that's reasonable to think the right guard play will then get better? Or is that like an alert of like, okay, well, it clearly hasn't been up to standard, especially in the Big Ten title game. But putting in a guy who has not ever started a game in his life as a starter in a playoff game is a terrible situation to be in. Like, the alert remains the same until further notice. Like, what if we're operating the general assumption that maybe it won't be Tegra starting a right guard?
- [26:39]
Bill Landis
My concerns don't change all that much.
- [26:41]
Doug Lesmerises
Okay.
- [26:42]
Bill Landis
Yeah. I just think that's the healthy way to approach it. And like, I, I think we discussed previously. Right. Is it just a anybody but Tegra situation? Kind of regardless of how guys have played, when they've played for Tegra. And, and I think that's a fine place to be. I would just caution people about running too far with how much better you perceive the other right guards to be than Tigger, because I, I, you know, I think Josh Padilla was like, slightly better, but he also hasn't played. What would be. When's the last time Padilla played the Penn State game until something like that, until December 31st. So that's like a month and a half, almost two months. It is two months because Penn State game was the first weekend of, of November. Right. So it's either Josh Padilla having not played in two months, or Gabe Van Sickle, who's a true sophomore and I think shown some promise. But I, I would just, like I've said before, like, I don't, I don't think he's been awesome. I think it's fine to go to either one of those guys just to see if you can't light a spark there. But the, I think there's this notion that There's a guarantee that the play will be better. And I don't, I'm, I'm not there. I'm very much wait and see on that.
- [27:52]
Doug Lesmerises
So. Carson Hinsman, Austin Seravel, 781 snaps each this year. Luke Montgomery, 777. Philip Daniels, 702 because Daniels missed the one game. Tiger Shabola, 607. Gabe Ban Sickle. 136. Ian Moore at tackle. 118. Ethan Onion, various backup roles. 96. Josh Padilla, 86. So it's just like these guys have not played. If it's Van Sickle or Padilla, that's 136 or 86 snaps this year that you're looking at, like, hey, can you, you go be a starter for a team that's the favorite to win the national championship? It's not a great spot.
- [28:24]
Bill Landis
No, I mean, it's, it's, it's. You know, Luke Montgomery and Austin Seravold were in that spot last year, so it can be done. But they also kind of rotated both those guys throughout the postseason, too. So I still think, and we don't know, like, Tiger may not be healthy enough to, to play in the Cotton Bowl. I think if he's healthy enough to play, he'll still play. He'll just, would. He would just rotate if he's available, but we don't know if he's gonna be available for the combo.
- [28:53]
Doug Lesmerises
Okay. And I do think, I mean, again, like, it's not a great spot, but also, I've said it a million times, sometimes these guys, like, at the end of their second year, if they are who you think they're going to be, they're ready to be that. I actually thought, you know, a year ago, I said, you know what? I think, I thought, I think Luke Montgomery might be ready. I think Carson Hinsman had been through the ringer and come out the other side, and I thought he might be ready. And I think both those guys showed that they were. So I don't think it's impossible that Gabe Van Sickle or Josh Padilla in that position could show that and say, like, no, no, I'm. Especially Padilla. If he would be healthy as a.
- [29:24]
Bill Landis
Third year guy, it's like, okay, like, I.
- [29:27]
Doug Lesmerises
He came in with, with Montgomery and Saravel and they're doing it and, and they like Josh Padilla. They view Josh Padilla. That's the thing. Again, are you, are you taking a guy that you view as a future starter and just starting him a little early? I think that probably would apply to Padilla or Van Sickle here. It's not like a holy moly. It was. This guy is a career backup that we were never gonna play. This is a. This is a pull, you know, break in case of emergency kind of guy. No, it's just early, which is, you know, by the time you get to the playoff. It's not. It's not that early. Let's talk a little bit about the future. And. And I do want to ask you. You. You bring up a very good point about the Onion with lessons learned there. Is there a lesson to be learned or is it just like, sometimes portal stuff doesn't work?
- [30:15]
Bill Landis
I think it's just like this. I'm just looking at this class again, like it wasn't a good portal class. Even like Isaiah World at. At Oregon. And again, like the. Really the only. I'm not pretending I watch every snap of isaiah world. His PFF grades 53rd. Like, it's. He. It's worse than Serviles by a significant amount. And like, by that metric, he'd be Ohio State's third best offensive lineman, which is like, you know, an upgrade obviously from what Ethan Oniano has given them. But, like, actually, no, that's not even true. His grade, I'm just looking at tackles. His grade is worse than Phil Daniels and that was the number one guy in the portal. And I, like. I don't know, like, Elijah Pritchett went from Alabama to Nebraska and I think, like, lost a starting job. Right? I don't. It's just it. I think the portal is just a treacherous place to be shopping for offensive linemen. And sometimes it'll work really well and sometimes it won't. And I think it's hard to forecast. And unfortunately for Ohio State, they paid a lot of money for a guy who didn't work out.
- [31:24]
Doug Lesmerises
The College Football playoff is everywhere.
- [31:26]
College Football Playoff Announcer
Toughness, growth, sacrifices. Place your focus. This is where I think everything you got all day today.
- [31:33]
Bill Landis
The attention to detail is like none other.
- [31:35]
College Football Playoff Announcer
Be physical, be flat. We are the leader. Too late takes on Ole Miss, followed by James Madison in Oregon.
- [31:42]
Doug Lesmerises
It's time to bring it first round.
- [31:44]
College Football Playoff Announcer
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- [32:27]
Doug Lesmerises
I think Joe. Joe Cotton at Cincinnati, who wound up being their left tackle and seemed to do okay. I mean, he's. He's been there last of the whole.
- [32:36]
Bill Landis
Year, 39th among Power 4 tackles.
- [32:41]
Doug Lesmerises
You know, he. They could. I mean, if Ohio State wanted Joe Cotton, they could have gotten Joe Cotton. I mean, that was a great. I think we. We like that poll for Cincinnati at the time. Is he South Dakota or South Dakota State? But he's a. He's an fcs, I think South Dakota FCS guy stepping up. I think the point from rice was a G6 guy stepping up.
- [32:59]
Bill Landis
I think the point is, like, even if these guys aren't blowing people away with how they've played, a couple of them, I think, have played well enough to be a starting tackle at Ohio State, which then would have maybe gotten you to Saravel a guard.
- [33:12]
Doug Lesmerises
Right.
- [33:12]
Bill Landis
Which is probably your best version of your line. Yeah.
- [33:14]
Doug Lesmerises
And that's the point here. So that Austin Seravel was supposed to be the starting right guard. Anything on. And. And Portal Guy X was supposed to be the starting left tackle.
- [33:27]
Bill Landis
Yeah.
- [33:28]
Doug Lesmerises
And again, what Austin Saravel has done for Ohio State is just like, you run through these list of guys who just. You just start thinking, where would a team be? You're 22 starters. You're 85 scholarships. Now you're 105 scholarships. There's all these guys throughout the roster. And then every now and then. And it's not even a superstar necessarily, but you can point to a guy, be like, where would they be without that guy? And as we said a million times, Thayer Munford was that guy for Ohio State for three, four years. Like, where would they be without him? And Austin Seraval is like, right in that spot right now that something went absolutely haywire and feels like he is covering a gigantic hole. Because it's possible that it's like, oh, High State spent a bunch of money for a starting left tackle in the Portal who completely whiffed. That did not work, and it blew up their season. But that's not true because Austin's fail, Austin Sevell said, I've got this. And, like, that just remains a huge thing. Offensive line in the future. Good. All good to go. Good to go. Or not.
- [34:31]
Bill Landis
Yeah. I don't. So. So I. We've referenced this before. I wrote before the season started that I thought the, the room was the healthiest. I've seen it probably in my time covering the team. And I'm. I still believe that like there's. There's the room, there's the health of the room, there's the depth and the future starters you can project. And then there's like the five, another five good enough. And like, I'm not saying that the starting five have been excellent, but when you consider that like all of them could come back, I don't know that they all will come back, but they all can come back if they want to. And then you have like Padilla and Van Sickle and Ian Moore who kind of seem like they're on the come up. You have Carter Lowe, who's there as a, as a five star guy. They brought in Justin Terry as a transfer after a freshman year, West Virginia. Like he's gotten on the field a little bit. I think that's a sign that they like where he's at. I think they like Jake Cook. This incoming recruiting class with Sam Greer and Max Riley, I think is. Is pretty solid. So I continue to like the position that the room sort of holistically is in. I just think it's a matter of really honing in on who your best five guys are and then doing everything you can to get them in the best positions too. That I think will be the thing that sort of like unlocks the next step for Ohio State's offensive line.
- [35:45]
Doug Lesmerises
But.
- [35:45]
Bill Landis
But I do still like their options quite a bit. I.
- [35:50]
Doug Lesmerises
The. It won't be the same five starters next year though, even if, even if they are on the roster. I. Right. I just think the idea there'll be.
- [35:57]
Bill Landis
A new starting right guard, I think.
- [35:58]
Doug Lesmerises
Yeah, that Ian Moore takes a job. Maybe Ian Moore takes right tackle, bumps Philip Daniels to right guard. Maybe Ian Moore moves to guard. Maybe Carter Lowe is like, I'm ready to go as a second year guy as a left tackle or something and bumps Austin Seravel to right guard. Like there's a lot of. There's a lot of pieces here that even though you potentially have an experience, pretty decent sometimes, very good offensive line returning. There's enough higher ceiling pieces beneath them gaining experience that I think, I think the line should be even. We're saying this is the better. This is the best line in three years. We think next year's line should be better because it'll either be the same guys who are More experienced or guys who have beaten out the current guys, which means they're even better and it'll be a step up.
- [36:46]
Bill Landis
Yeah, I agree with that.
- [36:49]
Doug Lesmerises
The.
- [36:51]
Bill Landis
So there's a couple of wild cards. Like, Carson Hinsman has graduated.
- [36:54]
Doug Lesmerises
Right.
- [36:54]
Bill Landis
But he didn't. He didn't walk on Senior Day and he has another year left. If he were to leave, I think, excuse me, Josh Padilla is the next guy up there. The thing I don't want to, like, worry people necessarily of, I saw a draft analyst who had Austin Seravelt in his top 50 players because he's been so good playing tackle and like, he's gonna be a guard in the league. It's like, dude, does he. I think I would be surprised if he won with one year starting, but I don't want to write it off entirely if he gets some pretty good feedback about being one of the better interior offensive line prospects in this draft class. If they were. If you were to pull him out of the mix for next year, I would start to think a little differently about things. But I guess I won't assume that because it just. It's just kind of rare to see guys go to the league if with only one year starting.
- [37:45]
Doug Lesmerises
And I do think. I think Ohio State's best portal option at tackle this off season is Austin Searveld. And just whatever the money, give him, whatever the money was that Austin Seravel made this year and the money that Ethan Onianwa made, just take all that money and give it all to Austin Cerebell next year. Like, this is a. Keep a. Keep a second or third round pick out of the draft kind of nil move. Yes, I think. Would that not be worth it?
- [38:09]
Bill Landis
I think that's right. And I think if they're. If you do that, even like, whatever, even if, like Hinsman leaves, I don't think Ohio State's going into the portal for any offensive lineman.
- [38:20]
Doug Lesmerises
Like, you would say, Onionwood didn't work. Justin Terry did work. Philip Daniels did work. These are of Terry and Daniels are Ohio kids who, frankly, we. We've detailed this in our roster building discussion and offensive line week. Or Ohio guys they probably should have recruited to begin with, but they immediately sort of fixed that miss and brought them in and, and actually. Right. Like, would you predict especially the way the portal is going to work now that Ohio State's kind of going to get like a late start and all, that they will bring in zero portal guys on the offensive line?
- [38:55]
Bill Landis
My guess would be they bring in none. I Think if they do bring in anyone, it would be more like a Terry move, like a. A young guy who you recruited out of high school and. Or you watched out of high school but didn't offer. And then bring him in after a year or two somewhere else, but not the expectation that he's going to start for you in 2026. I think. I think all 5o line starters are already on the roster, which is a.
- [39:18]
Doug Lesmerises
Remarkable difference from a year ago. It's like, hey, what are you guys doing in the portals? Like, oh, getting two starting tackles. Oh, you get two starting tackles in portal. Oh, good luck to you guys.
- [39:25]
Bill Landis
Yeah.
- [39:25]
Doug Lesmerises
And then that's what they try to do, and it's not what actually happened. I also am very aware of situations like this when we have discussions and you are a person who is very serious. You have a serious nature about you when it comes to football discussions, particularly on the offensive line. And sometimes we get to the end of a podcast and I've made some silly jokes and I've done some voices and we're almost done, and then I say, do you have anything else, Bill? And you're like, well, I actually have like 19 more pages of stats that I looked up that we didn't get to because you were just running your mouth the whole time. You got anything else on the line?
- [39:58]
Bill Landis
No, I think we got through a lot of what I wanted to talk about. And there's more. There's more on the written companion to this on. On the substack page, too.
- [40:06]
Doug Lesmerises
Okay. We're running through every position, and we got quarterback coming up soon. We got defensive line coming up soon where we're going to get to everybody. And we have our substack people voting on that. We have our written piece. We have this discussion here, and we're going to keep doing other pods here on YouTube in the podcast feed. Well, but for now, we appreciate you guys letting us hang out with you. He's Bill Landis. I'm Doug Lee Maurice. And that was the Bill and Doug Show.
- [40:42]
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- [41:12]
Doug Lesmerises
College Football Playoff is everything.
- [41:15]
College Football Playoff Announcer
Toughness, growth, sacrifices. Everything you got all damn day.
- [41:21]
Bill Landis
The attention to detail is like none other.
- [41:23]
College Football Playoff Announcer
Be physical. Be flat. We are the winner. Chilene takes on Ole Miss, followed by James Madison in Oregon.
- [41:30]
Doug Lesmerises
It's time to bring it first round.
- [41:32]
College Football Playoff Announcer
Coverage of the college football playoffs presented by all state Saturday at 3:30 Eastern on TNT and HBO. Max, are you ready? Let's go.