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Kevin McGuff today on Jacy Sheldon: “We're getting closer. We're just really making sure we give it ample time to fully heal so that we can have her at 100% down the stretch. But we're getting closer for sure.”

Our plan as of now is to do these once a week throughout the offseason (days/times may vary, but we plan on doing one every week). Assuming the response is good, we would like to keep it going during the football season as well – starting out doing this on Monday afternoons is a test run of sorts, as that’s likely when we would do them during the season.

I think you could make that case for any of Georgia, Alabama and Ohio State, considering they currently have the three best odds to win the national championship and all of them will have starting quarterback competitions this offseason. Ohio State’s may be the most intriguing in the sense that both contenders were top-50 overall recruits and that they’ll be throwing to what should be the best receiving corps in college football once again.

FYI, I did some additional research and found that the seniors with an extra year of eligibility have until Feb. 3 to withdraw their names from the NFL draft. So Babb, Friday, Gaoteote and Proctor don’t have to make final decisions by today like the underclassmen do.

Thanks for all the great questions, everyone. Will check back tonight when I have a chance in case anyone has any additional questions. Look forward to doing this again.

As of this weekend, her status was still day-to-day. The commentators on BTN during Saturday’s game said she was making progress toward a return but that Ohio State was being cautious with bringing her back to make sure she’s fully healthy before she gets back on the court. I’m hoping to make it to the next women’s basketball interview session to talk to them about the great season they’re having, so I’ll certainly ask for an update.

I think Ryan Day has done a good job of keeping transfer attrition to a relative minimum given the current climate, but I am definitely expecting additional outgoing transfers after spring practice. The lack of time between the end of the College Football Playoff and the start of the new semester makes it tough for players on CFP teams to transfer during the winter window if they want to be a part of a potential national championship run. But I think there will certainly be players who see the writing on the wall during spring practices and opt to transfer when it becomes clear they won’t see much playing time this season if they stay.

Just reached out to Ohio State and was told no official word yet on whether those four will be using their additional year of eligibility.

Based on what Proctor and Gaoteote told us before the Peach Bowl (https://www.elevenwarriors.com/ohio-state-football/2022/12/136416/xavier-johnson-palaie-gaoteote-josh-proctor-still-deciding-whether-to-return-for-extra-year-of-eligibility), I’ve been under the impression that both of them are more likely to move on than stay at Ohio State for another year, though I don’t want to put words in their mouths as neither of them said that directly. Given that Babb wasn’t an active participant in practice before the Peach Bowl, I think there’s a good chance he decides it’s time to call it a career. Haven’t heard anything definitive regarding Friday’s plans for next year.

Parker Lewis was cleared to play in September and still has two years of eligibility so the expectation is he’ll be back with the Buckeyes this season and competing for the kicker job with Noah Ruggles’ departure.

1. I can’t speak for everyone, but my impression has been that there’s still a lot of belief in Jim Knowles within the program. There was always an expectation that it would take multiple years for Knowles to fully implement his defensive scheme, so turning on him now would be overreactionary. I’m sure there have been some hard questions asked over the last few weeks as everyone tries to diagnose why the defense failed to perform up to expectations at the end of the season, and I think Knowles realizes as much as anyone that they can’t do all the same things they did this past year and expect different results. But I think there's still a lot of belief within the program that he’s the right man for the job.

2. It does give me a little bit of pause – particularly in the sense that the defense had many of the same issues against Georgia that it did against Michigan even with five weeks between games to make fixes – but I think Knowles is a smart guy who is more than capable of learning from what went wrong in year one and making changes accordingly in year two. If Ohio State’s still getting gashed by repeated big plays in big games next year, I think there will be more reason to question Knowles. But I think having a second full offseason with a defense full of players who now have a year of experience within the scheme could go a long way toward better execution in 2023 – though I am interested to see what changes Knowles might make this year in terms of schematic adjustments and different personnel packages.

Option No. 3 would be my guess. I think Day will delegate the duty of actually calling the plays to Hartline, but I’d still expect Day to be very involved in offensive game planning and making in-game decisions in tandem with Hartline.

Giving up offensive play calling certainly could allow Day to spend more time with the defense than he has in the past – and I’ll be interested to hear what he has to say about all of this the next time he holds a press conference – but I still expect Day to spend more time with the offense than he does with the defense. Jim Knowles was hired to be “the head coach of the defense,” and I think he’s still viewed that way inside the WHAC even after a disappointing end to the season. But I do think freeing himself up to have more input on what the defense is doing is one of several reasons for Day to delegate the offensive play calling duties to Hartline.

I won’t pretend to know every detail of how those conversations happen behind the scenes, but it’s definitely a collaborative effort. Typically, that process starts with Mark Pantoni and his recruiting staff, who watch film on thousands of different prospects and then make recommendations to the coaching staff on which players they should evaluate themselves. The position coaches watch the recommended prospects at their respective position groups and then decide whether they should offer that player immediately, continue to evaluate that player for a potential future offer or focus on other players. The coordinators on each side of the ball are of course involved in those decisions as well and evaluating whether or not prospects are fits for what Ohio State does offensively and defensively.

Ryan Day certainly has the final say on any offer that is made, but one thing you’ll hear from any Ohio State assistant coach about Day is that he values his assistants' opinions and fosters a collaborative environment within the staff. So I’ve certainly gotten the impression that he trusts his assistants’ judgment and allows them to make decisions on which recruits Ohio State should prioritize at each position. But it's definitely a collaborative effort with both the coaching staff and player personnel staff in terms of identifying targets and setting the board.