Buckeyes ready for fresh start

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

It’s a fresh start for Ohio State.

As it turns out, a lot of the players expected to usher the Buckeyes into a new era are also just starting out — and are fresh faces.

So far, first-year coach Urban Meyer and the rest of his staff prefer effort and competitiveness over age and experience.

The young guys may run the wrong way, but they do it with abandon. The coaches love that.

“We want to see what guys have that ‘it’ to them or really that desire as a young guy to get out there,” said defensive co-coordinator and last year’s interim head coach, Luke Fickell. “They don’t slow down not understanding not knowing what they’re doing.

“Then you’ve got to put them in positions to do that. Hey, [even if] they don’t know exactly what they’re doing, those are the guys you really have to concentrate on and give them some opportunities.”

No fewer than 19 of the 22 full-time positions listed on the two-deep chart include a freshman, sophomore or a redshirt first- or second-year player as a starter or backup.

“I feel like a lot of [the young players] are stepping up,” starting center Corey Linsley (Boardman) said. “You see guys that the Coach is calling out all the time. They’re moving up on our academic boards, they’re moving up on our weight-room boards. You see it transfer from the weight room and the classroom and off the field to on the field.”

Several sophomores, in particular, play high-profile, high-stress, high-responsibility positions: quarterback Braxton Miller, receivers Devin Smith and Evan Spencer, linebackers Ryan Shazier and Curtis Grant and cornerback Bradley Roby.

On top of that, Meyer says youngsters will get playing time immediately when the games begin on Sept. 1.