Can Ohio State's Offensive Line Starters Return This Week?

As the Buckeyes turn their attention to (hopefully) playing Michigan on Saturday, there are a number of questions that linger from the past ten days - but I don't think any of them are more pressing than the situation around the offensive line.

First and foremost, the Buckeyes are expecting to play a game on Saturday - and they're hopeful it will be against Michigan. But if the Wolverines aren't able to play, I wrote last week that I think the Big Ten needs to make sure OSU can get on the field some way, some how, even if that means re-arranging the schedule with a potential Minnesota cancellation.

Let's back-track for a second. Saturday's offensive line was missing three starters - Nick Petit-Frere, Thayer Munford and captain Josh Myers - and Harry Miller shifted from left guard to center. Only Wyatt Davis started in his normal spot last week.

Miller had a tough start to the game, but he got better as the day progressed. I would imagine that an additional week of practice would help him fix the snapping issues that plagued the Buckeyes early in the game last week.

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Unfortunately, Wyatt Davis left the game with an apparent leg injury. He needed help getting off the field and eventually needed crutches to get to the locker room. The extent of his injury is unknown, but he's the Buckeyes best offensive lineman and missing him on Saturday would be really tough. His status might be the single most important storyline of the week for Ohio State.

As far as the rest of the line is concerned ... the Buckeyes don't discuss any CoVID-related information outside the team facility. The game day status report shared by the university doesn't specify which players are dealing with the virus, which ones may be out due to contact-tracing, or who may have just missed the game because of an injury. It would be unfair to assume anything about the three offensive linemen (or anyone else for that matter) that didn't start against Michigan State. But here's what we know for sure.

The Big Ten still has a 21-day, return-to-competition rule in place for any player that tests positive for CoVID-19. Ohio State had 17 scholarship players out last weekend. You may recall that last week, Dr. Jim Borchers said the Buckeyes cancelled the Illinois game because they crossed the 7.5 percent population positivity rate threshold, but by the time the Michigan State game around, the team was under that mark. I think there is a reasonable chance there may have been a fair number of players who didn't test positive, but were out on Saturday due to contact-tracing.

Ohio State deserves a lot of credit for the way it mitigated the spread of the virus in the locker room over the last two weeks. Ryan Day said Saturday on a Zoom call after the game that he's hopeful the worst of this is now behind them. Day is eligible to return to the facility today - coaches and staff members operate under a different set of rules than players do.

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Regardless, we won't have a sure answer as to who will return for Ohio State on Saturday until the new status report is released. Most weeks, that's been made available on Friday's around 10 a.m., but Ohio State has delayed making that public each of the last two weeks.

If the conference doesn't alter the 21-day regulation, there's a pretty good chance the status report will look very similar each of the next two weeks - which means a very different looking offensive line from what the Buckeyes played with most of the season.

If the league chooses to alter its quarantine rules to match current CDC protocols, and if there were players that missed last week's game because of contact-tracing, who subsequently produce negative tests results this week, perhaps there's an outside chance the team could get some guys back. I wouldn't count on that though, given the way the league has operated this year.

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