What is up? Welcome into your daily Buckeye Blitz for a Saturday. Let’s hit the weekend, let’s do it! Yeah, drink some brews. Anyway, don’t forget Sunday night, as usual every week, YouTube live, 8 P.M Eastern. Be there or be square. If you subscribe to the channel, you’ll get notified every time we go live, so you might want to try that and you get all of our videos every time they are uploaded.
Quick update, the Christmas tree, well formerly the Christmas tree, now the birthday tree, still going strong. Getting a little thin, not too many needles on the floor, but a few, but still going strong. I think we’re gonna try and get it through this weekend and I don’t know, you might have to take it out Saturday night, Sunday night, something like that, and put her to bed. So she served us well. Anyways, all the lights are still on, it looks good, Christmas star looks good, so yeah, birthday tree in effect.
Oh, one other side note, speaking of birthday, so I have a hell week coming up this week. Let me explain to you exactly what hell week means in my house. So my wife’s birthday is this coming Tuesday, all right, the seventh. Our anniversary is Friday, then Valentine’s Day the following Tuesday. The trifecta that is hell week in my house. You know how many freaking dinners and presents and just I gotta do for a hell week? Oh yeah, and that’s just coming off the heels of Christmas, by the way, just a month and a half ago. So hell week’s coming up, say a prayer, hope for the best. I’ll keep you notified if anything goes south.
Anyway, tonight, today, whatever, we’re talking offensive line. Justin Frye, Fry guy, what’s up Fry guy, punk? You know, just kidding, there’s your pill. I have to say that because some people won’t get the reference, Google it. So we’re talking offensive line. We got three holes we gotta fill, that’s what she said. No, there’s no time, no, we do have three positions we need to fill in the offensive line, but Justin Frye in his interview on Wednesday said that he’s excited about the process and getting this group together. It is one of the most unsettled position groups there is, like we have no freaking clue honestly on these three positions, it’s pretty wide open. So, it is one of the most unsettled positions on the roster on the two-deep, and we’re still what, about a month from starting spring practice, a little more?
So, let’s talk about replacing Luke Wypler at Center. Quote from Ryan Day, “We were hoping that Luke would not declare, but he did, and we wish him nothing but the best, but yeah, that one we didn’t really expect. Tells you where the staff was mentally.”
So the plan is right now, Matt Jones is going to stay at right guard, even though he was one of the top centers in the country coming out of high school. He’s going to stay at right guard. Frye is eager to get as many players experience snapping the ball just for emergency sake. Okay, so you got Victor Cutler, the transfer from the portal from ULM, and you got sophomore Carson Hinzman. Now, this is not a guy we’ve heard a lot about, so second-year guy, sophomore Carson Hinzman, the guy from Wisconsin, he’s in the mix, and you got senior Jakob James, but James is out of spring with an off-season surgery, so really this comes down to spring. Anyway, Cutler versus Hinzman at center. So Cutler played tackle at ULM last year, but before that, in 2021, he started four games at center, so that’s why he has might have a little bit of a leg up at center. But a quote from Justin Frye on Carson Hinzman, he said, “He progressively just got better. I kept him up a lot. He wasn’t always down with the scout team. He did some travel stuff. By the end of bowl prep, he’d be watching clips of him against our starting defense, saying, ‘That’s a true freshman doing that.’ He was building an understanding, but now you build size and strength. He’s a worker. That’s going to give him a shot to get on the field.” So interesting quote there, very enlightening. Coach Frye, so let’s talk about the tackles. So we settled it, spring is Cutler versus Hinzman for that job, and then fall, we’ll wait and see how Jakob James is and how he might fit into the mix.
Tackles, so Josh Fryar has locked down at least one spot, left or right, we’re not sure yet, he definitely has one. So hearing spotless, a spot start last year against Indiana in place of Dawand at right tackle, he got important reps at right tackle and right guard both last year, and Day and Frye both left the door open for him to possibly play left tackle. Frye pointed out that Josh Fryar also played on the left side of the line at times when they used him as a jumbo tight end, so keep that in mind. He has been on the left side. Hey, 6’6″, 320, so he’s got the size of range and everything you need. Been in the program for years now. The plan has been for a year now to get Fryar to step into a starting tackle job when one became available. Well, here you go, you got two, pick one. So anyways, some of the other guys at tackle right now, Donovan Jackson is not going to get any looks this spring at tackle, so we can squash that idea. Zen Michalski starts to show signs of progress last spring and summer, so a year ago now. He has a chance to be in the mix for the starting job, and he has more seniority than the other guys in the mix. So Zen Michalski is a name to keep in the back of your head.
Ryan, they said that sophomore Tegra Tshabola will be moving to tackle. He appeared in four games last year; he was a true freshman, so this is his sophomore year. He played as a second-string right guard, but he has the length – you know I love good length – to play tackle. So, he could be in the mix at tackle. Does he have the footwork? He has the length and the strength, but does he have the speed? Harry, come up with another word for speed. Also, don’t forget about George Fitzpatrick. He’s been in the program and hasn’t really gotten many snaps in real game time, not even garbage time. So, we need to have at least one guy at one of the other tackle positions.
We got Fryar, so we gotta have one or two guys that we can go out of spring with and say, “Okay, it’s one of these two guys going into fall camp for the other tackle shot tackle position.” You know, let’s figure it out early in camp in fall. So, close it out, Ryan. They said if we feel like we need to add somebody else, I guess we will. But right now, we’re just going to go into the spring with the guys we have and see how things go.
So, that’s all I got for you today. Don’t forget Sunday night, 8 PM Eastern, YouTube live. We’re probably going to take off the weekend of the Super Bowl, so this will be your last chance to talk to us until after the Super Bowl. And we’ll talk to you later. Go Bucks.
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