OSU’S Day prioritizes high school recruits
Buckeyes stay selective with transfer portal
The NCAA'S expansion of the onetime transfer exception to football last year brought a significant change to the sport: It invited a lot more player movement.
Underclassmen are allowed to transfer schools without having to sit out a season, an environment coaches and administrators have likened to the free agency seen at professional levels.
But it hasn't altered Ohio State's approach to building a roster.
“Our goal is always to recruit high school players and develop them while they're here,” coach Ryan Day said.
The Buckeyes have continued this offseason to take only a modest number of transfers, bringing in Oklahoma State safety Tanner Mccalister and Arizona State linebacker Chip Trayanum as midyear enrollees and receiving a commitment from USC kicker Parker Lewis last month.
That total is no more than in 2019, when ahead of Day's first season at the helm, they also picked up a trio of transfers that included quarterback Justin Fields.
In the following cycles, they added only one or two scholarship players through the portal.
“We really haven't spent a lot of time
focusing on the transfer portal,” Day said, “because I think if you want to sustain the program for a long period of time, recruits and their families, when you recruit them and talk to them about the plan for them to develop in your program, they want to see that happen. And they really don't want to see a transfer come in and jump somebody in line.”
The conservative approach to the portal is rooted in maintaining success on the traditional recruiting trail, where Ohio State has signed three consecutive top-five-ranked recruiting classes of prep prospects.
Day sees an overreliance on adding transfers as a potential turnoff to those high school players and others already
enrolled, potentially clogging the top of the depth chart and their pathways to the field.
“I think you're being a little bit disingenuous,” Day said, “if on the front end you're talking to your families and your recruits about the opportunity to play at Ohio State, and then you just go try to get the best player out in front of him. That can create some hard feelings.”
The program still keeps an eye on the movement across the country. Day pointed to last summer's hiring of Ryan Cavanaugh as college scouting coordinator within the player personnel department run by recruiting chief Mark Pantoni.
A former NFL scout, Cavanaugh monitors the portal and identifies possible pickups.
“If the fit's right,” Day said, “then we'll do it.”
Most of the transfers who joined Ohio State in previous years filled a glaring need.
When running back Trey Sermon transferred from Oklahoma in 2020, it was after Master Teague injured his Achilles tendon during spring practice, leaving the Buckeyes especially thin at the position.
Fields arrived the previous year on the heels of starting quarterback Dwayne Haskins entering the NFL draft earlier than expected.
But those are exceptions rather than the rule.
“We are making sure we are taking care of the guys on our team first,” Day said.
Adding any more players this offseason would also be complicated for the Buckeyes.
Day acknowledged last week that they have 85 players on scholarship, putting them at the NCAA maximum for next season.
So-called “super seniors,” using their additional year of eligibility due to COVID-19, were exempt from the scholarship limit last season, but that was not extended for this fall.
Any incoming transfers later this spring or summer would need to be preceded by a departure.
Joey Kaufman covers Ohio State football for The Columbus Dispatch. Contact him at jkaufman@dispatch.com or on Twitter @joeyrkaufman.