Losing a first-team All-American can’t be particularly beneficial for any position room, and that’s exactly what Ohio State offensive line coach Greg Studrawa was faced with when redshirt junior guard Wyatt Davis had enough of the waiting game and declared for the NFL Draft on Sept. 11.

Luckily for Coach Stud, it was a task he was faced with for less than a week, as Davis quickly rejoined the fold once the Big Ten season was reinstated on Sept. 16.

“There might’ve been a hallelujah in there,” Studrawa said Tuesday of his reaction to the news of Davis’s return.

Davis may be the only returning All-American on Ohio State’s front line, but he’s one of three returning starters –– each having earned All-Big Ten distinctions last year –– that would likely have been selected in this past NFL Draft.

Where can Studrawa look to improve the game of Davis, senior tackle Thayer Munford and redshirt junior center Josh Myers ahead of the 2020 season? How about their NFL scouting reports.

“The first thing we did was, when [Davis] thought about he’s gonna come out and he’s gonna leave was, we sat and we looked at the reports that the general managers had said on him about the draft,” Studrawa said.

Some recent mock drafts have Davis going in the top 15 picks of the draft as the first offensive guard off the board, and while they may not be first-round locks, Myers and Munford are widely expected to be taken in the first half of the draft as well.

“I took what those guys said, what they saw as strengths and weaknesses and I sat down and I said, ‘Here’s what they think you’re really good at.’ And I do this with Josh and with Thayer –– same thing,” Studrawa said. “‘Here’s what you’re really good at, how can we enhance it and make you better.’ And then, ‘Here’s what they think you’re weak at. OK, let’s attack this problem.’”

All three players were named to the Outland Trophy preseason watch list in July. The annual award is given college football’s best interior lineman, and the Buckeyes were the only team to have three entrees.

Davis and Myers both have just one full year of starting under their belt, but Studrawa said Munford –– a third-year starter –– might be showing the most improvement as he is fully recovered from a back injury that set him back in the strength and conditioning department ahead of last year.

Still, Studrawa said he created an improvement plan for each of the three.

“We found three or four things in each of those guys’ games, and we’ve been doing drills and technique things since the summer to try to make them better at those things,” Studrawa said.

A line that returned just one starter a season ago, the 2019 Buckeye front was named one of four finalists for the Joe Moore Award, given to the country’s top offensive line.

With most of the line returning this season, though, Studrawa thinks it can be even better.

“I was so proud of the guys last year because I thought that was one of the best lines in the country, and how they played last year. I think these guys, I told them the other day, I said, ‘I think you guys can be better.’ And that’s our goal,” Studrawa said. “Our goal is to take what we did last year and be better.”