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Football
Improved Strength Critical for Fit Adams
By Brandon Castel

As he wandered the practice field with the rest of his teammates late last week, Mike Adams looked out of place.

Mike Adams
Photo by Jim Davidson

He was where he was supposed to be, doing what he was supposed to do, but something didn’t look right. Or at least familiar.

The 6-foot-8 tackle was working with the rest of Ohio State’s offensive linemen as the Buckeyes opened spring camp Thursday, but he looked more like a tight end trying to convert than the typical hog-molly playing in the trenches of the Big Ten.

“He really is (in good shape this year),” offensive coordinator and line coach Jim Bollman said.

“A lot of those guys are in really good shape. In fact at this point in time none of them have a real weight issue, high or low.”

Adams in particular seems to have undergone a drastic physical transformation in the off-season. While he was never considered drastically out of shape, Adams came to Ohio State back in 2008 weighing well over 300 pounds as a freshman. Today he likely only hits the 300 mark after indulging at Chipotle and appears to be in the best condition of his life heading into his junior season.

But it’s about more than weight. While he has always been one of the biggest guys in the room, Adams hasn’t always been one of the strongest. In high school it was easy to push people around because he was so much bigger than everyone else, especially the 200-pound defensive ends he was facing every week at Dublin Coffman.

At the college level those ends are 260 pounds and fast. They have explosive first steps and an offensive tackle’s best weapon against them is his ability to lock them up and overpower them, something Adams wasn’t able to do during his first two years in Columbus.

With time starting to run thin—at least in terms of leaving his mark at Ohio State—and the left tackle spot once again up for grabs this off-season with the departure of senior Jim Cordle, Adams went to work.

“He's doing good. He's had a good winter,” Bollman said of the player he recruited.

“He's really worked at getting strong which will be a direct correlation for him as to how much he improves. You can see that he has.”

If starting positions were awarded on looks alone, Adams would be a shoe-in to line up on the left side of Justin Boren when the Buckeyes open the season against Marshall this fall. Then again, if that was the case Adams would have been starting from day one, Jamario O’Neal would have been an All-American and Vernon Gholston would be a two-time Pro Bowler by now.

Being a great offensive tackle is about beating the man across from you down after down, so while Adams might have looked the part last week, coach Bollman opted to withhold judgment until he gets a better look at Adams in action.

“Now put the pads on tomorrow and we can tell a little bit more,” he said on Friday before the Bucks first practice in full pads Saturday.

As for what Bollman will be looking for in the 15 practices this spring, and 29 in the fall, he wants to see that weight room strength translate to football strength. Last spring Adams was getting tossed around by Thad Gibson, whom he outweighed by a good 50 pounds at the time.

“Things correlated to strength. Body control, he's a big tall guy and when you don't have good body control you're getting pulled all over the place, your center of gravity is too high,” he said.

“So you have to have great strength and play lower.”

But it’s not just Adams who Bollman will be looking at closely this spring. The Buckeyes have a four-way competition for left tackle and Bollman plans to watch all of them closely this off-season.

“Not just Michael, that's the same with all those taller guys, with J.B. (Shugarts), with Marcus (Hall), with Andrew Miller, all those guys have to do a better job of playing lower,” Bollman added.

“Getting their tails down there and playing more powerfully, playing consistently.”

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