Latest / Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning / BREAKING: Ohio State Lineman Enters Transfer Portal

Transcript

BREAKING: Ohio State Lineman Enters Transfer Portal · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

• 0:00
  Welcome to a special breaking news episode of Buckeyes Tomorrow Morning for Wednesday May First.
• 0:04
  I'm your host, Tolm Moore. The Akron game in one hundred and
• 0:07
  twenty two days, the game against Michigan in two hundred and thirteen days,
• 0:11
  And for the fourth time this spring, and Ohio State football player has entered
• 0:14
  the transfer portal. This time it is veteran offensive lineman Enik Famahi. Tony
• 0:20
  Gerderman ifucka Huddle dot Com joins me, Tony, this is one where he
• 0:26
  kind of fits the profile of the guy who you would expect to go in
• 0:29
  the transfer portal, veteran longtime contributor, but didn't feel like he was really
• 0:35
  in the mix seriously to start this year. And it feels like going into
• 0:39
  your last year, you'd want to go somewhere you could potentially start. So
• 0:43
  this one, this one did not exactly shock me when it came across.
• 0:47
  No, this one was when it had been expected, as you said,
• 0:50
  fits the profile going into what is sixth year and was running with the threes
• 0:56
  this spring had been passed by year guys Luke Montgomery and Austin Siraveld at guard.
• 1:03
  Third year guys like Carson Heinzman and Tiger Shabola as well, So plenty
• 1:10
  of guys ahead of him at that point. So yeah, this one makes
• 1:14
  sense. And you think back to a year ago when Justin Fry was saying
• 1:18
  that, you know, Kamaya had been like one of the five best in
• 1:21
  the spring and they were going to find a way to you know, figure
• 1:23
  that out. He might be in the starting rotation. And you see what
• 1:30
  has transpired since then. But a guy who played thirty eight games in his
• 1:34
  Ohio State career started twice. Neither of those starts went particularly well last year
• 1:40
  in the Cotton Ball twenty twenty two against the Michigan he was replaced pretty quickly.
• 1:45
  But a veteran guy that had been you know, guarded, played some
• 1:49
  tackle even a little bit in his career, but one of the top recruits
• 1:55
  in his class, but just could never never quite put it together in Ohio
• 2:00
  State. Yeah, he was someone who it feels like for three years we've
• 2:04
  been talking about and maybe Enich fam Ahi being in the mix on the offensive
• 2:08
  line, and he was always kind of in that sixth or seventh or eighth
• 2:13
  kind of best offensive lineman where you felt like he was probably in the circle
• 2:16
  of trust, but never you know, outside of a couple individual games,
• 2:22
  was never a starter. And you know, I'm sure Ohio State fans right
• 2:25
  now are all they're going to remember from his career of those thirty eight games
• 2:30
  is the cotton ball against Missouri, which very much did not go well.
• 2:34
  And you know, that's probably not fair to him because he was a very
• 2:39
  solid contributor for a number of years. That is of course going to be
• 2:43
  the last impression, and that one that one's going to linger. I think
• 2:46
  in a lot of people's minds, it is interesting what his departure and the
• 2:51
  fact that he was running with the threes this spring, what that maybe says
• 2:53
  about the offensive line on the whole right now as well as what the offensive
• 2:59
  line was when he was coming in, because you could remember when he came
• 3:01
  in, he was one of those few guys who was not an early siinee,
• 3:06
  so he was he was a February signee and was not someone in Ohio
• 3:12
  State had had a ton of contact with before early signing day, and in
• 3:15
  that class that was still when Greg Studmorrow was at Ohio State, they were
• 3:20
  really short an offensive lineman that the room was really thin they desperately needed more
• 3:23
  people, and Enich from Ai, he flew in from Hawaii in January visited
• 3:29
  Ohio State. And you know, when you were one of those few guys
• 3:32
  in January, you become a very hot commodity, and Ohio State desperately desperately
• 3:38
  wanted to add him to that class. Ultimately did end up adding him to
• 3:42
  that class. But you know, I think it's in a way, Tony,
• 3:46
  this is probably an indication of progress for the Ohio State offensive line that
• 3:51
  you had someone who you desperately desperately needed and who was kind of perpetually knocking
• 3:57
  on the door and now has maybe slid down a couple runs on the ladder.
• 4:00
  Maybe that's not such a bad thing for the offensive line room on the
• 4:03
  whole, because to me, that suggests maybe the overall out level of talent
• 4:09
  is, you know, taking a little bit of a step up in the
• 4:12
  last couple of years. Yeah, and we remember the concern in Ryan Day's
• 4:15
  voice last spring about how the Buckeyes and the offensive line left things and what
• 4:20
  they needed to do. And you know, Famahi was one of those guys
• 4:25
  in that top six probably at that point. And then now to essentially probably
• 4:30
  not even be in the top ten. Speaks obviously to Luke Montgomery Austin Seerveld
• 4:35
  as I mentioned just those those two guys specifically as second year guys moving into
• 4:40
  the ones and twos, and however that shakes out, maybe they'll both be
• 4:44
  with the twos this year, but that's ahead of where Kama was this spring,
• 4:49
  and really Tiger Shabola Carson Hinzman in that situation as well. Just this
• 4:57
  boundary that Fromahi wasn't able to get through because of the younger guys stepping up
• 5:00
  and playing well, we know, offensive line is a developmental position where you're
• 5:05
  not really worried necessarily about somebody until you know, can you can you start
• 5:10
  contributing on a too deep as a third year guy and then maybe become a
• 5:14
  starter as a fourth year guy. Yeah, you have some advanced guys that
• 5:16
  move quicker than that, but really that's kind of the progression that you expect,
• 5:21
  and so to have these second and third year guys doing that, I
• 5:26
  think that speaks very well of the future and also the present of the Ohio
• 5:30
  State offensive line. You also still have the portal I mean you bring in
• 5:33
  Seth Maclaughlan that makes things even more difficult to find playing time. But overall
• 5:41
  a good sign that a sixth year guy if cold a cold thing to say,
• 5:46
  a good sign for the Buckeys, and a sixty year guy has decided
• 5:49
  to move on. But in terms of there's there really is no playing time,
• 5:54
  no playing option for him because there are so many younger guys are apparely
• 6:00
  better options at this point. And you know, you would hope that he
• 6:03
  can go find a good spot to play because he he was You never heard
• 6:08
  bad stuff about him. He's not a bad He's not a bad kid.
• 6:10
  He was not you know, he was a hard worker his his what five
• 6:15
  years at Ohio State and was always kind of there, ready to step in
• 6:18
  as needed and played, you know, on special teams and all that kind
• 6:21
  of stuff. So it's not you know, I think this is this is
• 6:24
  very much going to be a wish him well kind of situation. You hope
• 6:27
  he goes and finds a spot where he can get on the field. This
• 6:30
  is you know, I think there were a lot of people who were expecting
• 6:32
  and I will raise my hand and say me, I was expecting more transfers
• 6:38
  in the post spring game period. So far, there have only been four
• 6:42
  Vamahi, Dalan Hayden, Cedric Hawkins, and Jahad Carter during the spring window
• 6:46
  that closes on Tuesday night, so it is not officially closed yet. Could
• 6:49
  have more, but I think to me, Tony, the relatively quiet spring
• 6:56
  portal is maybe reflective of two different things. Number One, you've got an
• 7:00
  Ohio State team that is expected to do pretty big things this year, so
• 7:04
  hanging around for another year might not be bad if you have that option.
• 7:09
  And number two, we always do these you know where are they versus the
• 7:13
  eighty five scholarship limit thing, and it just feels like with as much turnover
• 7:18
  as there has been with the transfer portal, after the spray, after the
• 7:23
  after the season, and then you know, they just they have not ever
• 7:27
  brought in these enormous classes. We will probably do a where are they compared
• 7:30
  to the eighty five limit show at some point, but it's felt for years
• 7:34
  like they're always at eighty eight, eighty nine, ninety ninety one at this
• 7:39
  time of year, and it's like, well, someone's gonna have to transfer,
• 7:41
  and you have those hard conversations, it feels like with as much turnover
• 7:46
  as there is in the portal after every season, you're really not getting into
• 7:50
  the point where you're at eighty nine ninety ninety one right now because Ohio State
• 7:55
  is pretty much always going to lose more guys. You're gonna lose quantity and
• 8:00
  bring in quality where yeah, you're bringing in Caleb Downs and Julian Say and
• 8:03
  quin Shawn Judkins and guys like that, but you're almost always gonna be losing
• 8:07
  more guys. It feels like this quiet spring portal window for Ohio State might
• 8:11
  be a little bit reflective of that new reality of roster management. Yeah,
• 8:18
  and I think even we don't know how many guys are technically on scholarship because
• 8:22
  they don't tell us unless they tell us, and they don't. But assuming
• 8:26
  all three specialists are on scholarship going into Monday, I had the number at
• 8:33
  eighty five. So you add Jahad Carter, and you take Jahad Carter,
• 8:39
  you take Enoch from ahi Off, you're down a couple. That's not the
• 8:43
  worst thing in the world. You can give guys scholarships and things like that,
• 8:46
  but it's a little bit different than what we've become accustomed to. It
• 8:52
  does give them conceivably room to bring in people if they want, but at
• 8:56
  this point, there's really no no need to chase anybody off at this point
• 9:03
  because especially a sixth year guy, like somebody in their last year, like
• 9:07
  you're not trying to make up room for next year because that guy is going
• 9:09
  to be gone. But you don't necessarily have to boot anybody out right now.
• 9:18
  Like I said, you even have conceivably room to bring people in if
• 9:20
  you want. We've seen in the past where well we're at eighty eight,
• 9:26
  eighty nine, so some guys have to go, and that's not the case
• 9:28
  right now. And it's probably an interesting feeling like, hey, we've got
• 9:35
  some room, what do we want to do with this? And is there
• 9:39
  anybody out there where do we need it? And you know, that's a
• 9:41
  topic for another day maybe, or but it is the fact that we haven't
• 9:46
  seen as many I think in should knock wood at this point because who knows
• 9:52
  how how many are going to come in the next I don't know, twelve
• 9:56
  hours or whatever. But I think we all expected more, and I think
• 10:01
  there are a number of good reasons why we haven't seen that, and for
• 10:05
  each specific player it might be a different one of those reasons. So I
• 10:09
  don't want to generalize all of these things, but certainly these things came with
• 10:13
  a lot of thought like should I go? Should I leave? What's better
• 10:18
  out there? Can you leave at this point and go find a position that
• 10:22
  is going to provide more playing time? I think that's also a question.
• 10:26
  Yeah, for sure, is there is there a place where if you your
• 10:28
  primary goal is I want to play, then can you find a place where
• 10:31
  you can play? And you know, I know there's lots of you know,
• 10:35
  people are very concerned about tampering and all that kind of stuff. There
• 10:37
  are ways to have those back channel conversations and probably have a sense for where
• 10:41
  you might be able to land before you take that leap into the portal.
• 10:46
  I would guess that some of those conversations have probably been had for a lot
• 10:50
  of guys this spring at a lot of programs. So we'll see if we're
• 10:56
  back with another one of these a little later on today. As I said,
• 10:58
  the transfer portal deadline coming up on Tuesday night, may have another one
• 11:01
  or two, or may be done for the portal. That's the fun of
• 11:05
  the portal. You never know. So we will be back. We'll be
• 11:07
  back with plenty more content this week, whether it's portal related or not.
• 11:11
  At bucke Huddle dot com, that's where Tony, Kevin and I cover the
• 11:13
  team, Mark covers recruiting, got our whole team of ex'es and o's gurus
• 11:16
  making you a smarter football fan. Rate YouTube dot com slash Buckeye Huddle as
• 11:20
  well, make you use find us there too. That'll do it for today.
• 11:22
  Thank you guys all for joining us. Have a great day. We'll
• 11:26
  talk to you tomorrow.