Ohio State opens training camp: Changes on the offensive line, running back

Ryan Day’s shirt on the first day of Ohio State’s training camp had a motto on it: Fight to the end.

A year ago, his Buckeyes fizzled at the end, losing to Indiana and Miami after an undefeated regular season. Ohio State doesn’t want a repeat of that this year, and the Buckeyes hope that a tough regular-season schedule will steel them for a deep postseason run.

It all started today, though not much could be gleaned from it. Players were not in pads, so there was no tackling as the team eases into camp.

Afterward, Day spoke to reporters in a 9-minute lightning round. Here are highlights:

*On Austin Siereveld playing right guard in practice today. He was the left tackle last year. Ian Moore was the starting left tackle, which isn’t a major surprise after a strong spring.

Day said the team was split into scarlet and gray groupings, not starters and backups, so not too much should be read into that.

“We’re going to try a couple different combinations,” Day said. “We are going to look at him playing left tackle, as you saw last year, and also are looking at him playing guard. When you look at Josh Padilla, when you look at Ian Moore, when you look at Phil Daniels, finding the best five is what we’re going to do. Part of that is knowing that Austin can play both guard and tackle.

“He’s spent a lot of time at tackle here most recently, so we wanted to get him some guard reps, see how he felt there and how he looked.

“It’s going to be really good competition. The good news is we have some different options, but we’ve got to find the best five.”