COLUMBUS – Rarely has Urban Meyer started spring practice with a cupboard so bare.
The Ohio State spring football drills start Tuesday with an 8:30 a.m. practice at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center, the first of 14 practices prior to the LiFE Sports Spring Game, presented by Nationwide (April 16/ 1:30 p.m./Ohio Stadium). Tickets: $5 for general admission.
The 2016 Buckeyes are one of the most inexperienced groups of players Meyer has had: 39 lettermen (though only 35 of them lettered on last season’s 12-1 team) and only returning six starters, three on either side of the ball.
The 2014 team could claim only 38 lettermen but all of his previous four teams have returned at least a dozen along the offensive and defensive sides of the ball.
At Bowling Green, Utah and Florida, Meyer’s teams have never had fewer than 38 returning lettermen or fewer than eight returning starters.
“The one thing is that we have very good leadership,” he said earlier this year. “Pat Elflein is a captain. J.T. Barrett is a captain. Raekwon McMillan is a captain. … I’m jumping the gun a little bit, but those are three captains. We’re not waiting.”
Elflein, a fifth-year senior who has started 29 games, will move to center. Barrett is 15-2 as Ohio State’s starting quarterback with a career completion percentage of 64.2 percent and a career efficiency rating of 160.06. McMillan led the Buckeyes and ranked fourth in the Big Ten with 119 tackles and 9.2 per game.
The rest of the returning starters are certainly not without proven ability: Fourth-year junior guard Billy Price is already a two-year starter. Tyquan Lewis is a fourth-year junior defensive end who started all 13 games last season and led the Buckeyes with 8.0 quarterback sacks. Lewis, Sam Hubbard and Jalyn Holmes handled things on the defensive ends while Michael Hill, Tracy Sprinkle and Donovan Munger anchored the he inside of the line during OSU’s Fiesta Bowl win over Notre Dame while three key players were unavailable. Fourth-year junior Gareon Conley will assume the lock-down cornerback position.
Among those returning lettermen expected to compete for starting positions, with the wide receivers and H-backs depleted by graduation and the NFL: Junior Curtis Samuel is a proven player, with 22 receptions last season plus a 7.8 yards per rush average, and senior Dontre Wilson is primed to have a breakout season after 50 receptions for 573 yards and five touchdowns in his first three years. Noah Brown, and Corey Smith are recovering from surgeries.
At running back, fifth-year senior Bri’onte Dunn, with 48 carries for 287 yards and three touchdowns, is the only returning player on the roster with game experience, though heavily recruited high school star Mike Weber is ready to run after a redshirt season and true freshman Antonio Williams, who graduated from high school early and enrolled in classes in January, is the other scholarship running back available.