Breaking: Austin Snyder, a five-star player for Ohio, has decided to switch to Texas Tech, giving the 2025–2026 college a significant advantage over Alabama and the Bulldogs.

Breaking news: Ohio five star Austin Snyder , decommit and Flip to Texas tech boosting 2025-2026 college over Alabama and bulldogs …

Who will be Ohio State football’s kicker

After missing two field goals in the loss to Michigan, Jayden Fielding’s status as Ohio State’s kicker is unclear heading into Saturday night’s first-round College Football Playoff game against Tennessee.

Buckeyes coach Ryan Day was noncommittal when asked if Fielding would be OSU’s placekicker on Saturday. Day said Austin Snyder is pushing him for the job.

Ohio State Buckeyes place kicker Jayden Fielding (38) reacts after missing a field goal during the first half of Saturday’s NCAA Division I football game against the Michigan Wolverines.

“Today is our field goal day so those guys will get out there and practice,” Day said. “We’ll see how today goes and see how the rest of the week goes and make a decision at the end of the week about how we want to enter the game.

“Not that that’s any different than any other week, but we’ll certainly be taking a hard look at how it goes today.”

Day also was not definitive about who’ll start at offensive guard against the Volunteers. He said Austin Siereveld will rotate at left guard with Luke Montgomery and at right guard with Tegra Tshabola.

Fielding missed field goals of 38 and 34 yards in the 13-10 loss to Michigan. He made a 29-yarder to open the scoring. His Wolverine counterpart, Dominic Zvada, made a 54-yarder as well as the game-winning 21-yarder.

“I think his teammates have been good in terms of support and knowing that we wouldn’t put him in the game if we didn’t trust him,” Day said. “But he also knows that everybody’s got to do his job. Everyone’s got to do their job around here. His job is to make field goals, and so he’s got to have a good day today.

“Austin will be right in there, too, and they’ll both have an opportunity to kick today. We’ll make a decision coming out of this week of practice who gives us the best chance to win the game.”

Fielding is 9 for 12 on field goals this season. He joined the team as a walk-on in 2022 and won the job last year. Fielding made 16 of 20 kicks in 2023.

Against Marshall on Sept. 21, Fielding booted kickoffs out of bounds three straight times, which caused his benching. Fielding later said he tweaked his hip flexor on the opening kickoff and tried to play through it.

Snyder is a senior who graduated from Groveport Madison and kicked for three seasons at the University of Findlay. He was coached there by Rob Keys, who’s OSU’s special teams quality control coach.

Snyder hasn’t played since the Marshall game. At Findlay, he made 31 of 40 field goals. The longest was a 51-yarder.

Day said no decision has been made about who will start at the guard spots. Siereveld started at left guard in the first two games of the year when Donovan Jackson was out with a hamstring injury. Siereveld took over at left guard for Carson Hinzman when Hinzman moved to center following the season-ending Achilles tendon tear to Seth McLaughlin.

Tshabola has started all 12 games at right guard but has been inconsistent. Montgomery, a sophomore from Findlay who was the top-ranked recruit by 247Sports in 2022, has played in 10 games this year as a backup.

Ohio State’s offensive line has a tough task going against Tennessee’s deep and talented defensive line.

“I felt like practice yesterday was excellent,” Day said, referring to the offensive linemen. “We had a bunch of energy.

“There’s been some good, positive mojo up there. Guys are getting after it. I feel like we’ve got a good plan for what we want to get done this week.”

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