What We Learned from Watching Ohio State Practice Actual Football

You often ask us who’s standing out and making a move up the depth chart at spring practice, and now, we feel equipped to actually answer those questions.Saturday’s Student Appreciation Day gave us our first opportunity of the spring to watch the Buckeyes practice actual football – as in, we got to watch team drills, 7-on-7 drills and head-to-head competition rather than just warmups and individual drills – and as a result, we got our first real glimpse of who’s where on the depth chart and who’s making plays in competitive action.We spend the first half of this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays talking all about what we took away from Saturday’s viewing opportunity, including which players and position groups stood out most and which units look like they still have a lot of work to do between now and September.In the second half of this week’s episode (beginning at 30:28), we talk about the impact of a busy week in the transfer portal for multiple Buckeye teams, starting with the football team, who lost defensive backs Lejond Cavazos and Bryson Shaw to the portal on Monday. While those moves are a hit to Ohio State’s secondary depth, we discuss why neither of them came as a big surprise and why heading elsewhere at this point in their careers is probably in both of their best interests.After answering some listener football questions, we shift the conversation to basketball (beginning at 48:47) and talk about the likely departure of Malaki Branham from the Ohio State men’s basketball team and how the incoming transfer of former Wright State guard Tanner Holden could help fill some of that void. We also discuss who else the Buckeyes could add from the portal – and whether the next priority should be a power forward or a point guard – after Justin Ahrens’ entry into the portal.To wrap things up, we also share our thoughts on Chris Holtmann’s hiring of Jack Owens and expected promotion of Mike Netti and on what we expect from Thad Matta’s return to the sideline at Butler.