Ohio State favors development over transfer portal

Two weeks after the deadline for entering the transfer portal, all is quiet around the Woody Hayes Athletic Center. And for head coach Ryan Day, that’s how it should be.

It cuts down on the noise, he said, allowing the players around the program or the program itself to focus in, having a much better idea of what Ohio State is going to look like without the threat of movement.

And the Buckeyes have had their fair share of movement.

Over the course of the past eight months, Ohio State has had 15 scholarship players enter the transfer portal, including quarterbacks Jack Miller and Quinn Ewers, cornerbacks Ryan Watts, Lejond Cavazos, Andre Turrentine and Sevyn Banks, and safeties Craig Young and Bryson Shaw: each of which who found homes with major Division 1 college football programs in Florida, Texas, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kansas and USC, respectively.

For Day, this is just what happens when Ohio State’s process works, adding in the circumstances COVID-19 and the extra year of eligibility brought to college football.

“Our goal is always to recruit high school players and develop them while they’re here,” Day said. “And if it works, then they get on the field. If it doesn’t, then, you know, not that I like it, but there’s an opportunity for some people to find other places to play. What we’ve done is we’ve just done a really good job of identifying the high school kids that we want to recruit and develop them.”

That’s primarily what Day and the Ohio State coaching staff’s focus has been on: continuing that development process with high school players instead of plugging and playing transfers from season-to-season.

It’s something Ohio State has done before when there has been a hole to fill, Day said, bringing in running back Trey Sermon, quarterback Justin Fields and offensive guard Jonah Jackson in the recent past, along with kicker Noah Ruggles, running back-turned-linebacker Chip Trayanum, safety Tanner McCalister or, most recently, kicker Parker Lewis.

But to sustain a program, Day said he can’t recruit players, talking to each about the plan he has for them at Ohio State just to bring in a transfer to jump that player in line.

“I think you’re being a little bit disingenuous on the front end when you’re talking to your families and your recruits about the opportunity to play at Ohio State just to go and get the best player out in front of him,” the Ohio State head coach said.

To wide receivers coach Brian Hartline, the transfer portal is a great option and it has its fair share of success stories. But it’s not what makes a player successful.

“Now they may have played more or done more,” he said. “Justin Fields was going to be successful regardless of where he was at. Jameson Williams was going to be successful regardless of where he finished and that’s a fact.”

Numerous players have seen success stories come their way with the change of scenery through the transfer portal, something Ohio State has seen, with Sermon, Ruggles, Fields and even Williams.

And it’s something that can prove to be challenging to the coaching staff.

“It can be challenging at times because you feel like you’re re-recruiting your room every week, and to some degree you are,” Ohio State running backs coach Tony Alford said. “But I think as long as you have transparent relationships going on and we’re all on the same page as far as communicating what’s going on, there’s not really a lot that you can’t work through.:

That’s where Alford starts in the recruiting process, introducing the belief system to the player and his family that he can be developed and molded into a successful player at Ohio State, but honestly telling the player where he stands and building the foundation of the room on transparent conversations and relationships.

“You tell them the truth,” Alford said. “That’s kind of how I recruit anyway: I tell you what I think and you may or may not like it, but I’m going to tell you what I think.”

But Ohio State does have a presence in the portal.

Day credits the Buckeyes’ college scouting coordinator Ryan Cavanaugh, a former NFL area scout, who was hired to evaluate players in the transfer portal, finding the right fits if the team has a hole to fill.

But to Day, it’s almost a last resort. He would rather have it quiet around the Woody Hayes Athletic Center without the noise the transfer portal brings.

“We are making sure we are taking care of the guys on our team first,” Day said.