Duck Dive: Ohio State Buckeyes Football 2025 Preview

Thanks to Eric Boggs of The OHIO Podcast for joining me to discuss Ohio State’s roster on this week’s podcast:

This will be the fourth consecutive year in which Coach Day substantially changes the offensive playcalling system at Ohio State – not just the person making the decisions, but the entire approach to how the decisions are made.

For the first several years since taking over as interim in 2018 and then fulltime head coach in 2019, Day continued his previous role as playcaller from the sideline but with coordinator Kevin Wilson in the booth acting as the “eyes in the sky”, as Eric has been calling it, in a collaborative process. This lasted through the 2022 season to success commensurate with the Buckeyes’ top talent ranking, but when Wilson left in 2023 to take the Tulsa coaching job, Day changed it up. He promoted WR coach Hartline to OC, though Eric has told me it was widely understood that this was only a title and for salary reasons, and after a brief experiment in Spring of that year it was clear Hartline wasn’t ready to call plays so Day did it all himself. Although it’s difficult to disentangle the playcalling change from several other factors in the mix in 2023 – a step down in QB and OL performance and an oddly constrained approach to personnel usage in the passing pattern, among the more notable — that season is quite an anomaly in Ohio State’s recent history for being 20 or more ranks lower in advanced statistics than their talent would predict.

In 2024, Day made another change by bringing in his former college coach from when they were both at New Hampshire, Chip Kelly, and Eric’s description of the playcalling and playbook design approach defied belief. To harness Kelly’s passion and creativity in the run game they’d have him write that part of the playbook, then merge it with Day’s passing system, and hand it back to Kelly to call plays from the booth during the games. But in a reversal of the Wilson-scout / Day-call approach, now Day would operate a go / no-go system to constrain Kelly’s heterodoxies. As Eric and I discussed during our couple of in-season podcasts last year, it was an approach that certainly produced some clunky results and head-scratching outcomes at times, but at other times was likely absolutely essential to the Buckeyes’ national title run, especially as their offensive line injuries started to pile up and Kelly’s misdirection plays became vital to keep the defensive heat off.

For 2025, Eric told me that the appointment (or re-appointment, depending on one’s perspective) of Hartline to OC is “for real” this time, and he really will be calling plays on his own … although we both suspect Day will have a bit of input, as is typical for any offensive-minded head coach who’s handed off the playsheet. This is a fairly traditional arrangement in college football, though as it happens, it’ll be the first time for both Hartline or the Buckeyes in the Day era. I think Eric’s take that Hartline has shown success at everything that he’s tried and there’s reason for optimism here is pretty reasonable, and I’d add that Ohio State hardly needs a virtuouso playcaller given their massive talent advantages in the vast majority of games, they simply need to avoid mistakes and for Day to not be overworked. Still, with a first-time playcaller who’s unlikely to have access to the high level tomfoolery as Kelly did if they’re ever in a jam, I expect any extra coaching effects here to be minimal.

With last year’s starting quarterback, Will Howard, drafted in the 6^th round by the Steelers, and backups Devin Brown and Air Noland transferring out, there’s a quarterback competition that’s down to two. As part of a long running observation Eric and I have discussed a few times, Ohio State does far less positional rotation even during garbage time than most teams in their talent cohort or immediate vicinity, and so we’re often left with very little data from previous playing time to go on for open competitions. Eric told me that this is one that looks like it’ll go down to the wire between 2023 low 4-star #3 QB Kienholz and 2024 5-star #10 QB Sayin.

Kienholz was with the first-team offense in the Spring game and has had an extra year in the system, and Day has said that he performed best for most of practices. Eric said that Kienholz is a bit more of an athlete and an improviser if the pocket breaks down (he was a multiple-sport athlete and Gatorade player of the year in North Dakota), while Sayin has a bigger arm and throws a beautiful deep ball. Eric is leaning towards Sayin at this point because of comments that Day made that he won the Spring game when the lights were on, although I tend to think that these things can reverse and without a huge difference in experience, raw talent, or athletic profile it’ll go to whoever is farther along in command of the offense.

I’d probably give the inside track to Kienholz since he’s a year older for that reason — more time to pick up the playbook — but Eric’s comment that he’d never seen Kienholz throw the ball deep stopped me cold on the podcast. While improvising out of the pocket is nice, the most significant advantage that Ohio State has is its nearly undefendable wide receiver corps and even in a scenario in which the offensive line isn’t offering much protection, shots to those guys solve all problems (watch last year’s Nebraska game if one needs proof). If it’s the case that Kienholz doesn’t have access to that and Sayin does, there’s no contest at all.

Both running backs who split all meaningful carries last year were drafted in the 2^nd round, TreVeyon Henderson by the Patriots and Quinshon Judkins by the Browns. Of the two backs remaining in the room, both 2024 recruits, mid 4-star #20 RB Peoples burned his redshirt getting some garbage time carries while mid 3-star #24 RB Williams-Dixon didn’t, so I figured Peoples had a spot in 2025’s two-back system and Eric agreed. Peoples was running with first team in the Spring game and looked fine, although the ones-on-ones weren’t tackling or taking on serious blitzes so I still haven’t seen him doing the most important work of a back.

They’ve taken one portal addition, #12 RB Donaldson from West Virginia who was a mid 3-star in the 2022 cycle and ran for 4.5 YPC on 163 carries last year. He had bulked up to close to 240 lbs in Morgantown from his 215 lbs listing as a prep recruit, and Eric told me that the Mountaineers were using him as something like a fullback just pounding it for a couple yards up the middle, but has lost something like 20 lbs since transferring to Columbus and will be used differently. I didn’t really get to see it in the Spring game, but given his experience he’s a shoo-in for the other main spot in the two-back system. The back with the twos in the Spring game was true freshman #25 RB B. Jackson, who’s probably the backup behind Williams-Dixon but I expect to see even less.

I’m expecting a step back for this unit, there’s simply a huge experience falloff and hitting the same production would require Peoples instantly hitting his talent ceiling and Donaldson equally instantly adapting to a new running style. Eric and I had an interesting discussion about new OL coach Bowen who’s come over from Virginia Tech where he ran the offense, and the suggestion that there’s twin-track passing and rushing offensive systems being coordinated here where Bowen is in charge of the latter – the idea is intriguing and fits into the mold of how Kelly brought in his own creative rushing stuff last year, but it introduces at least as many challenges as it solves with new backs and a new offensive coordinator. There’s also the matter of how big of a loss in pass protection replacing Henderson and Judkins represents — Henderson in particular is the all-time king in my charting system of blitz pickups, for any team in any year – with Eric noting that Donaldson looking a bit slow with the extra weight he’s got to lose.

After losing Cade Stover to the NFL at the end of the 2023 season – the team leader in per-target success rate that year surpassing even Marvin Harrison Jr, and the most valuable tight end in “gotta have it” down & distance situations I’ve ever charted — it was understandable for the Buckeyes to face something of a step back in 2024 at the starting tight end spot replacing him. But the slide in production and blocking grades from this unit last year, as well as the frequent rotation which far exceeded the norms for this team, indicated to both Eric and I that the staff was dissatisfied by just how far of a step back it was.

Gee Scott Jr, Stover’s backup previously, took over the starting job but produced only FBS average numbers at just over a 50% success rate and 7.7 adjusted YPT – for Ohio State’s offense, average is pretty significant underperformance, and Scott was one of the few eligible Buckeyes from this squad to go undrafted. The staff put in another pass-catching tight end frequently enough for statistical evaluation, #15 TE Thurman, but his receiving numbers were even worse at a 38% success rate and 5.6 adjusted YPT, with several drops and some route-running issues, and although he was about six percentage points better of a blocker than Scott, both came in below expectations on my tally sheet.

The primary blocking tight end was #89 TE Kacmarek, who’d transferred in from Ohio that cycle and moved ahead in the order of junior #85 TE Christian, but his grades weren’t really any better at about 50/50. The staff vacillated between the two and wound up giving about 40% of reps to Christian, which is a much higher share than I’ve seen for a backup in 11- or 12-personnel from this offense in the past.

Christian, Kacmarek, and Thurman all return. It looks like the two blockers will stay in the same order, as the three other tight ends in the room are all true or redshirt freshmen who Eric confirmed appear too skinny at this point to break in early. He thinks that Thurman will remain at second-string and probably transfer out by the end of the season (I kept track of Eric’s predictions on this question from last Summer’s podcast and he batted 1.000).

The room clearly belongs to Purdue transfer #86 TE Klare, who was far and away the Boilermakers’ most effective receiving target last year. Klare was mostly split-out and wasn’t used as a blocker often (and graded out quite poorly, near 15%, when he did), and as a passing target his success rate was actually about half a point behind Scott’s, but despite that his receiving average was close to a full yard better at nearly 8.5 adjusted YPT. With a merely average success rate and the challenges of overcoming such a limited offense, putting up that many yards on the balls he did catch indicates some real route-running and post-catch ability.

As Eric and I discussed, Purdue’s almost historically terrible offense (109^th in F+ advanced statistics, and I think even that’s an overestimation based on a sui generis game against Illinois for reasons that longtime readers familiar with former coach Ryan Walters’ history will understand) makes nailing down Klare’s true potential in a more talented offense difficult. There’s a wide range of possibilities from him being under-rated to over-rated for the same core reason – both his QB and his opponents knew he was the only threat on the field in West Lafayette. By how much remains to be seen, but I think it’s a safe bet that the Buckeyes improve their pass production from the unit since Klare’s legs are for real and he has a pair of hands attached to his wrists, though it looks like their blocking is stuck in neutral. Because I think all four upperclassmen TEs will play and then depart, it’ll probably be a complete reset in 2026 with the freshmen getting zero playing time in 2025.

Ohio State loses longtime starter Emeka Egbuka to the NFL, drafted in the 1^st round by the Buccaneers, but returns both starting outside receivers, #4 WR J. Smith and #17 WR Tate. Both finished the season with absolutely spectacular per-target numbers: 62% success and adjusted 11 YPT for Smith, and 68.5% and 10.1 adjusted YPT for Tate. In multiple games in the second half of the regular season when offensive line issues started piling up and the run game became less reliable, both the quick passing game and deep shots to these two nearly undefendable receivers was in many instances the only thing that worked and more than enough to win (by far the most effective defensive strategy was to back out all available pass defense assets to take Smith and Tate away, and force or induce Ohio State to run or dump off to tight ends, viz Nebraska, Michigan, and Texas, and even then OSU was 2-1 in these games; that defensive coordinators for other teams chose different strategies can only be described as madness and folly).

Smith’s numbers from charting are consistently high from the beginning of 2024, his true freshman season, but Tate’s utilization has shown significant growth over the last two years. Tate was arguably the biggest victim in 2023, his true freshman year, of the previously mentioned peculiar and rigidly defined WR roles that year and was relegated to constant clearout or decoy routes, then targeted only on emergency outlet passes, with understandably terrible success and YPT figures.

In 2024 as one of the three primary receivers, Tate’s numbers in the first half of the season climbed, but only to about FBS average, as the big plays were either going to Smith on the outside or Egbuka on RPOs. In the second half of the season, however, with mounting offensive line injuries the passing offense offense had less time to set up their more complex patterns and found more success simply duplicating what they already had with Smith on the other side with Tate. During this time both Tate’s targets and his per-target productivity climbed as his passing profile got deeper (Egbuka’s profile fell off a bit in this stretch as a consequence, but he still finished with a stellar overall 65% success rate and 9.9 adjusted YPT).

With Egbuka’s departure, Hartline (or perhaps more accurately, assistant WR coach Jordan, who Eric told me has stepped up his responsibilities in his fourth year back in Columbus with Hartline taking over as playcaller) needs to replace the inside receiver production. Other than the two returning starting outside receivers, there appear to be four more wideouts in play who’ll round out the six in the two-deep and it’s just a matter of how the pieces fit. Those four are 2023 high 4-star #1 WR Inniss (who wore #11 last year), 2023 low 4-star #13 WR Rodgers, 2024 high 4-star #5 WR Graham, and 2025 high 4-star #11 WR Porter. Their sizes are such that I think Inniss would need to play in the slot and Porter would need to play X-receiver, while Rodgers and Graham could viably play either inside or outside. Inniss is the only one who has any meaningful prior playing time, he rotated in a bit last year and had a below average success rate at 45.5% and poor YPT (by OSU standards) more than two and a half yards fewer than the rest of the WR corps.

We talked out a few scenarios on the podcast – one is the configuration presented in the Spring game, with Rodgers becoming the new starting slot and Inniss behind him, while Graham and Porter are the backup flankers. Before talking to Eric I was inclined to pencil this in, because I had taken the Spring game as staff ratification of Inniss’ unsatisfactory 2024 production and Rodgers’ promotion as an attempt at a fresh start. Eric said that another scenario was more likely: Inniss has the starting slot job by default because the staff views him as having earned it (he discussed Inniss being the voice of the room and displaying off-field leadership) and it would take something pretty drastic for Inniss to lose the position. Eric also suggested that the Spring game positioning might not have any real significance and could have just been about working a matchup or testing something with a particular QB. The third scenario mixes things up fairly differently, moving Graham inside as starter to play a more of a Y-receiver position and using Inniss situationally when they want a smaller lineup. I hadn’t seen any indication of this in Spring but it certainly intrigued me when Eric brought it up because it would actually look a lot more like how they used Ebuka and Inniss in 2024.

I gave Eric a bit of a hard time on the podcast for his enthusiasm about Ohio State’s prospects in 2025 at the offensive line (to be fair, he literally asked for it; we joked around a bit). We’ve been in long-running agreement in our conversations about the unfortunate circumstances with the departure of the excellent former coach Greg Studrawa and what’s looked like less effective recruiting and development — as well as an over-reliance on the transfer portal — from his replacement Justin Frye who came over from UCLA in 2022, and has now been replaced in turn by Bowen. These issues first became noticeable with a decline in performance in 2023, and were exacerbated midseason in 2024 as several injuries forced the highest upside starter out of position, the benched center from the previous year back into action, and backups who’d previously lost out on competitions to fill in.

At the conclusion of the season, the original starting left tackle but who was hurt and missed the majority of the year, Josh Simmons who’d come over from San Diego State in 2023, was drafted in the 1^st round by the Chiefs. Donovan Jackson, possibly the best guard I’d seen Studrawa produce, was eventually moved over to fill in for Simmons as the most acceptable solution to the problem (the first try at a replacement, Zen Michalski, was not effective and has now transferred out); Jackson was also drafted in the 1^st round, by the Vikings. The right tackle, Josh Fryar, has started in every game for all three seasons under Frye and was not drafted.

At the beginning of 2024, Ohio State was replacing their right guard Matthew Jones who’d left for the NFL, they’d benched their center from 2023 #75 OL Hinzman (Eric relayed an interesting story about some behind-the-scenes politics, I’ll add he had a remarkable 38.1% error rate in run blocking on my tally sheet), and Jackson was being held out for the first two games. The center spot went to Alabama transfer Seth McLaughlin, while #67 OL Siereveld temporarily held Jackson’s LG spot before returning to the bench, and there was an open competition for the RG spot between Hinzman and #77 OL Tshabola, which the latter won.

The injury situation midway through the year scrambled things even more at the interior spots. Jackson moving over to LT brought Hinzman back in at LG, then later in the season McLaughlin tore his Achilles so Hinzman got his old center job back and Siereveld went back in at LG. They also started giving Tshabola a break on the right side by swapping Siereveld over to his spot and bringing then-redshirt freshman #51 OG Montgomery in for those relief reps at LG. McLaughlin won the Rimington trophy but went undrafted, the rest of the interior linemen who played in 2024 return.

On my tally sheet only Simmons and Jackson played at a high level all-around (Jackson’s grades were dinged somewhat when he switched out to tackle but this is understandable playing out of position), with McLaughlin having very good pass-blocking grades but not great run-blocking grades prior to his injury. I don’t have enough reps on Montgomery for statistical evaluation (subjectively, I noticed some freshman stuff on tape but physically he looks promising with the right development), but the three interior returners who did not have stable jobs at the beginning of 2024 — Hinzman, Siereveld, and Tshabola — each finished the season with about 19% error rates in pass blocking and over 35% error rates in run-blocking.

It was Eric’s giddiness (his term) for these returners that drew my ribbing on the podcast. He said that Hinzman will go back to starting at center, third time lucky, while Siereveld has won the prestigious Iron Buckeye award I learned about for the first time and Coach Day has proclaimed that he will have a starting job somewhere on the offense (presumably not QB; TE could use some help) and Montgomery has the left guard spot locked down. The left tackle in Spring is one of the few transfers I approve of, #78 LT Onianwa from Rice who moves excellently despite his massive size.

Eric presented two potential solutions on the right side, given the apparently definitive Siereveld start: he replaces Tshabola and RT is filled by another transfer, #70 RT Daniels from Minnesota (who had an odd history swapping with 2023 starter Martes Lewis, now at Northwestern), or Tshabola keeps his job and Siereveld switches positions to tackle. Although he repeatedly leavened it with the possibility that the opposing defensive line replacements just weren’t much competition, Eric was delighted at watching these guys in practice and seeing them each take big steps forward compared to previous performances.

As in all things, I am a skeptic. I liked Onianwa’s tape at Rice, I’m willing to reserve judgment on Montgomery, and nobody whiffs completely with this many chances so the coaching change from Frye to Bowen is likely to pull at least one of the previous returners out of the cellar. But in his first season in Columbus with none of his own recruits, Bowen needs to nail it with one inexperienced kid (Montgomery), rehabilitate at least two (Hinzman, Siereveld) and possibly three (Tshabola) technical projects from his predecessor, and faces a Hobson’s choice between playing Siereveld out of position at tackle or the portal effect by starting two transfers (Onianwa, Daniels). This is an unenviable position to be in with low odds of running the table.

In terms of depth, whichever position Siereveld takes frees up a guy to be a backup, Tshabola at guard or Daniels at tackle. Eric said that #62 C Padilla should be ready to go at center, though the other two redshirt freshmen I saw in the Spring game, #69 OL Moore at tackle and #58 OL VanSickle at guard, need to come along more before he’s comfortable with them. He said something similar about the likely left tackle of the future, #72 OL Deo. Armstrong (one of a pair of highly recruited twins last cycle but I haven’t seen yet). The room was getting pretty small with three transfers out this cycle, I’ve mentioned every scholarship returner so that’s only nine guys, less than half of whom have any real play. They took three promising prep recruits and a young transfer from West Virginia as another project to repopulate the numbers, which is a good start to getting back to the Studrawa days, but in my opinion between Frye effect and Ohio State’s reluctance to give garbage time play to backups, it’s going to take some time and they’re going to need a lot better injury luck than they had last year.

On the podcast we started with an interesting and lengthy discussion on the departure of former defensive coordinator Jim Knowles, some types of pressure packages I’d noticed had varied in use over the course of the 2024 season, and the changeover to new DC Patricia from the NFL (it included a couple personal anecdotes and some real juicy gos which the reader simply must listen to the podcast for). As informative and enjoyable as this was, as well as useful for my upcoming article about Knowles’ new employer Penn State, the upshot is that it confirmed my suspicion that the fundamental defensive philosophy and the particulars of the scheme are very unlikely to change in any major way. While Patricia is probably equipped to and maybe even interested in doing a variety of other things, in all likelihood he’ll be a football “chameleon” as we referred to him – observe that the roster and complete set of returning longtime position coaches are set up best to run the 4-2-5 in a straightforward manner just as they were during the late stages of their title run and just … do that.

Another useful takeaway from that discussion of the diminishment of pressure package variety over the course of last season was that it further curtailed the rotation in the defensive front, and it was already on the low end of the spectrum compared to their cohort. In the final eight games of Ohio State’s season rotations collapsed so much during meaningful play that backups and alternate players on the defensive line got essentially no playing time. As all four starters are now off to the NFL — tackles Ty Hamilton to the Rams in the 5^th and Tyleik Williams to the Lions in the 1^st; ends Jack Sawyer to the Steelers in the 4^th and JT Tuimoloau to the Colts in the 2^nd — the Buckeyes now face a complete replacement with very talented but not particularly experienced linemen.

The two new starting tackles look to be 2023 low 4-star #98 DT McDonald and 2024 high 4-star #96 DT Houston. McDonald was getting the most of the small amount of rotational play at the beginning of the year and I’d already penciled him in, though I wasn’t sure about the other guys who were getting it along with him – senior and Ole Miss transfer #95 DT Malone, junior Hero Kanu, and 2023 4-stars #94 DT J. Moore and #53 DT W. Smith. Kanu has transferred out and I didn’t see Smith until very late in the Spring game, with Eric saying Smith’s been struggling for playing time. Eric said the jury is still out on Moore because of his age and he’s probably a second-stringer, and that Eric’s personally pulling for Malone because he’s got a great story, but it’s telling that Houston as a true sophomore has jumped both of them and did so while converting from an end to tackle and packing on mass.

I think that order makes sense — McDonald and Houston as starters, Malone and Moore behind them – and while Eric said it’s a big cliff behind the starters and not to expect much rotation, it’s very much in keeping with Ohio State’s norms to identify two guys and give them all the work they can handle. The concerns here are that even the starters are pretty green in terms of age and experience, let alone the backups, and an offensive line I’m not wild about was pushing them around in the Spring game when usually the defense has the edge at that point.

At end, Ohio State used three players in some different packages and so there was more field time here than with the tackles, but not many of those rotations came on standard downs and then those packages diminished in the second part of the year. Furthermore one of the three has transferred out, Mitchell Melton. They return the other two, both 2022 mid 4-stars: #92 DE Curry and #97 DE K. Jackson. They figure to be the new starters and have each been getting at least a bit of backup play since they were true freshmen three years ago; Eric talked about his conversations with Jackson’s father and it being the young man’s time, and Curry playing with a lot of recklessness but perhaps running out of gas quickly and needing time to build up.

Eric threw a bunch of curveballs at me when it came to the rest of the defensive end room that I was not expecting. First, I hadn’t seen a highly rated player from the 2023 cycle, #52 DE Mickens, during the Spring game and asked after his injury status, and Eric told me he’s fallen off and isn’t even in the two-deep. Second, Eric has the FCS transfer #48 DE George as a second-stringer for standard downs, assuming he can make the transition to Power conference play (he was highly productive at Idaho State, I watched him get sacks when reviewing Oregon State and Montana State’s games against the Bengals). Third, his other second-stringer is another transfer, Beau Atkinson from North Carolina, who was very productive there and could move inside during 3^rd down packages to give some relief to the tackles, though his transfer was after Spring so it’s less certain how he fits in (we joked that Atkinson’s leap from the ACC to the Big Ten may be as big as George’s, though my tongue was only partially in my cheek about that … I really don’t know if his havoc stats will translate).

The fourth curveball broke the hardest on me – they’ve converted a former linebacker and at one point starter (due to an injury situation) into the defensive end room, #11 DE Hicks. During the Spring game he was playing on-ball with his fist up on the second team as what I would either call an OLB in a 3-3-5 or a STUD in a 4-2-5 (the latter probably makes more sense, after our discussion about Patricia), and I figured at the time this was just about the depth situation at end with Mickens unavailable and Atkinson not on campus yet. But Eric told me that both DL coach Johnson and LB coach Laurinaitis have confirmed he’s permanently made the switch. We both think there’s going to be some learning curve here while he picks up the position and it’ll probably be as a pass rush specialist.

The unproven nature of the depth here cuts in a couple ways. Eric said Atkinson was best positioned to challenge Curry or Jackson for a starting position if either of them falter, which certainly seems accurate – the only other options to sharpen them are an FCS transfer, a freshly converted linebacker, a guy who’s vanished from the field, and freshmen. I think there’s a pretty decent possibility that this works out well, given how effective Johnson is as a coach – Curry and Jackson have been in line for a long time with very high talent ratings, Atkinson and George have the statlines of guys who know how to play the position, and Hicks gives some intriguing flexibility – and we’ve got no film to indicate that it won’t. But it’s a shock nonetheless to see this unit in a position where both starters are fairly green and not one of the likely backups have played a snap as an Ohio State defensive end before.

After 2023 when Ohio State lost both its multi-year starting inside backers to the NFL, they made a few conversions at the second level of the defense. Knowles changed them over to a fulltime 4-2-5 structure, rather than swapping back and forth between a nickel and a 4-3 as they’d done in the past, which effectively eliminated the SAM position. This converted 2023’s starting SAM, Cody Simon, to the middle, and they brought down a former safety, #6 LB S. Styles to be the other starter. Simon wasn’t available for the first game in 2024, so Hicks got the start initially as the first backup in, though I had the second backup #8 LB Reese (then wearing jersey #20) grading out better on my tally sheet, including outperforming the starters on a few metrics although his reps dried up in the later part of the season.

Simon was drafted in the 4^th round by the Cardinals, and they’ve solved their logjam of returners and depth shortage at end by moving Hicks down a level to the line. Styles returns to his starting spot and Reese has gotten a promotion to the other one, which I took as a ratification of his performance in 2024. The backups seem certain from the Spring game and Eric’s confirmation, 2024 low 4-star #26 LB Pierce and 2025 high 4-star #20 LB Pettijohn. I thought Pettijohn in particular looked like he has a very bright future from the Spring game but who knows how that’ll pan out in real play. None of the backups have ever gotten to see the field and besides Pierce and Pettijohn it’s just two inexperienced returners, two true freshman, and an FCS transfer in the room, none of whom Eric or I think are serious options to play in 2025.

There’s some room for incremental growth for the starters, though on the other hand there’s less margin for error since instead of four guys for two spots it looks more like two guys and a couple of kids they’re bringing along until they’re ready and it’s uncertain when they’ll be (although I suppose in a complete emergency they could take Hicks back out of the end room). I thought of the three levels of the defense in 2024 the linebackers showed relatively the most problems on a technical level, and when I asked Eric what he thought about prospects for improvement he said he expected about more of the same. I think other factors will tend to be more controlling for how this unit winds up looking — that is, if the defensive line changes in front of them or nickel change alongside them or some of the coverage changes around them wind up being significant, they’ll wind up being caught up in it and have pretty different looking stats even if they’re playing at the same fundamental level.

Of the nickel and both deep safety positions in 2024, Ohio State only really gave some meaningful reps to the backup nickel, with the other two playing virtually every snap prior to and even during garbage time. The starting free safety, Alabama transfer #2 DB Downs, returns while longtime starter on the strong side, Lathan Ransom, was drafted in the 4^th by the Panthers. Starting nickelback Jordan Hancock, whom Eric and I have discussed on several podcasts as taking some unfair snipes from certain quarters and we both think did an excellent job in a very high leverage job as the fulcrum of the defense, was drafted in the 5^th by the Bills.

Hancock would rotate out during meaningful play at times for #3 DB L. Styles (older brother of the linebacker and namesake of the Ohio State legend; Eric told a great story about his graduation with his father) whose grades weren’t quite as high but was clearly being groomed for the position. In garbage time then-true sophomore #9 DB Hartford would come in at nickel and then-true freshman #18 DB McClain would play strong safety, but I don’t believe Downs ever got a replacement on his side.

In the Spring game, the first team was Styles at nickel, Downs at free, and Hartford at strong, while the second team was redshirt freshman mid 4-star #12 DB West at nickel, redshirt freshman mid 3-star #28 DB Roker at free, and McClain at strong. Eric’s comments on the podcast led me to believe some of those positions were locks while others were misleading, and I spent some time turning over what I saw and going over my charts from 2024 after talking with Eric to parse what he told me to put together the following solution.

I think Downs continues to never leave the field, his backup is probably Roker but they’re not putting in a massive step down in talent on paper if they can avoid it. It was odd that Hartford was moved out of the nickel position for Spring, but I think Eric is right, McClain is much more likely to be the starting strong safety in the Fall (and the likeliest backup is a very talented prep recruit, high 4-star #10 DB Delane).

While West is a talented and exciting prospect, I think the actual competition in the secondary is between Styles and Hartford at nickel. This may be somewhat uncomfortable because of a comment Eric made about Styles’ younger brother the linebacker wanting to come back and play together, but as I said to him on the podcast, I was waiting for a Khrushchev moment of banging his shoe on the table and announcing that Styles the nickel had locked the position down and was ready to take people’s heads off when he tackled them, and this didn’t happen. Eric acknowledged it, and that if he hasn’t got the job secured by now there may be trouble ahead at a key spot in the defense. At any rate I think the order is either Styles-Hartford or Hartford-Styles, with West as third-string.

One starting cornerback, Denzel Burke, is off to the NFL, drafted in the 5^th by the Cardinals, while the other, #1 CB Igbinosun, returns. During meaningful play, backup #7 CB Mathews (then wearing #24) got some rotational reps, and in garbage time then-true freshman high 4-star #5 CB A. Scott and then-redshirt freshman Calvin Simpson-Hunt got some run. Mathews and Scott return while Simpson-Hunt hit the portal. I haven’t seen the fourth returner, 2024 low 4-star #13 CB Lockhart, or one of the two prep recruits, mid 3-star Jordyn Woods who wasn’t on campus for Spring.

Mathews was one of the only Ohio State backups I can remember and certainly the only one in 2024 whose playing time increased over the course of the season, as he was subbed in later in the year as Igbinosun tended to get in foul trouble, as it were (Eric joked that he’d like to see Igbinosun fitted for oven mitts). His grades aren’t spectacular on my tally sheet and he’s a bit of an odd man out at a couple inches shorter than the Buckeyes tend to prefer corners, but he has literally an order of magnitude reduction in the rate of flags per pass coverage rep compared to either of the 2024 starters.

Eric and I agreed that Igbinosun and Mathews are 100% locks to start the opening week against Texas, but both of us have also had our attention captured by Scott and the prep recruit who was on campus for Spring, 5-star #4 CB Sanchez. They’re likely the future at the position and when I asked the likelihood that one or the other winds up taking away a starting job from Igbinosun or Mathews in the middle of the 2025 season, Eric rated it as even odds.