Losing WR Dane Sanzenbacher might be the biggest hit for OSU. More college football, see FOXSports.com's NCAA page .
Ohio State closes spring practice Saturday with its Scarlet and Gray game in Ohio Stadium, hoping to fill holes at quarterback, tailback, two receiver spots, three offensive line positions, both cornerbacks, safety, a pair of linebackers and two places on the defensive line.
Other than that, the Buckeyes are all set.
Oh, wait. They also need a kicker.
Clearly, more questions than answers abound at OSU, and that's without mentioning the future of Jim Tressel as NCAA investigators pore through the remnants of the Tattoo-Gate scandal and the head coach's attempted cover-up of it.
Oops, just mentioned it.
In a fitting tribute to how turbulent and uncertain the times are at Ohio State, the spring game won't be a game at all, but a scrimmage necessitated by the presence of only 10 available offensive linemen.
Splitting them into two five-player units would invite an ugliness to rival anything seen in previous spring games, which is saying something given the somnambulant performance that often prevails.
OSU typically packs more than 60,000 into Ohio Stadium for this affair, but the crowd might be smaller today given the scrimmage format and the threat of thundershowers.
The game-day ticket price of $15 is also far from family-friendly.
Then again, never underestimate the loyalty and curiosity of Buckeye fans, or their lust for answers regarding who will direct their team this fall while quarterback Terrelle Pryor sits out a five-game suspension for violating NCAA rules.
The candidates include senior Joe Bauserman, sophomore Kenny Guiton and freshmen Braxton Miller and Taylor Graham.
Bauserman has the edge because of experience. Graham has been intermittently impressive throwing the ball, but lacks the mobility of Guiton or Miller, who led Dayton Wayne to the Division I state championship game next season and is billed as Pryor's heir apparent.
Presumably, that means Miller has the stuff to eventually take Pryor's place in the lineup, not in a lineup before NCAA investigators.
While most attention centers on the offense because of Pryor's absence and that of his fellow-suspendees -- tailback Daniel Herron, left tackle Mike Adams and receiver DeVier Posey -- the OSU defense has its own significant holes to plug.
Defensive end Cameron Hayward has been the Buckeyes' headline defender for two seasons and started for the past three, just like linebacker Ross Homan and cornerback Chimdi Chekwa.
Defensive tackle Dexter Larimore, linebacker Brian Rolle, cornerback Devon Torrence and safety Jermale Hines each started for two years.
That's a lot of experience gone from a defense that will be expected to hold opponents in check until an offense missing its top playmakers is allowed to finally run with scissors again when its A-listers return in Week 6 against Nebraska.
By then, OSU will have played its Big Ten opener against visiting Michigan State, which fortuitously skipped the Buckeyes last year when it was masquerading as a BCS contender until exposed by Alabama, 49-7, in the Capital One Bowl.
MSU, though, is not scrambling to fill spots at skill positions like Ohio State, nor are Big Ten challengers Michigan or Nebraska.
Ah, but that doesn't really matter, because all three of those teams are in the Legends Division of the soon-to-be-12-team Big Ten when Nebraska comes aboard this fall.
OSU is in the Leaders Division, where Wisconsin is looking for a quarterback to replace Scott Tolzein, Penn State is trying to figure out how to name a starter from among three candidates so the other two don't transfer, and Illinois was eviscerated by three early-entries to the NFL draft.
It appears the Buckeyes have deftly positioned themselves in the weakest division of the league, thus providing an inside lane to the first Big Ten Championship game in December, despite missing many of their difference-makers for half the season.
Besides that, Ohio State gets its only two viable Leaders Division challengers, Wisconsin and Penn State, in Ohio Stadium late in the year when Pryor and the players who followed him into NCAA prison will be back in the lineup.
So no matter how ugly things get in the scrimmage wrap-up to spring practice, and no matter how discouraging the future may seem with five key players and the head coach on the sidelines until Oct. 8, a fortuitous schedule and the relative weakness of its half of the league suggest Ohio State will wind up right where it has been for the past six seasons.
On top of the conference, looking down at everyone else.
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