Ohio State Football: Starting offensive lineman out with COVID

The Ohio State football team had multiple bouts with COVID last season. If affected multiple players in multiple different games. Many were hoping that it wouldn’t be an issue this season with the vaccine coming out. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

It looks like starting center Harry Miller didn’t make the trip to Minneapolis because of COVID. That means the Buckeyes will now have a brand new quarterback and a brand new center starting their first games ever, on the road, in a game where it will likely rain.

That is not the ideal scenario for the Buckeyes to start out their season. It’s incredibly frustrating for this virus to still be affecting Ohio State and how they are able to play their games. It’s going to be interesting to see how many games COVID continues to affect this team.

As far as the game tonight goes, Luke Wypler will end up filling in for Miller along the offensive line. I wonder how much chemistry Stroud and Wypler have since Wypler hasn’t really gotten many first-team reps. I wonder how that will affect snaps in the shotgun.

This should just be a minor nuisance for the Buckeyes. Their offense is still too talented to be stopped by Minnesota, even with a new quarterback and center. Both of them just have to not make mistakes, and the rest of the playmakers will take care of the rest.

This does put more pressure on the running game from Master Teague and TreyVeon Henderson. If they are great, then Miller missing the game isn’t a huge deal. This was already going to be a new offensive line combination, so moving one more piece shouldn’t kill them.

Hopefully, this is the last time writing an article about how Ohio State is missing a player due to COVID.