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Ohio State Transfer Portal: Who Could The Buckeyes Add For 2024? · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to Buckeyes Tomorrow morning for Thursday May ninth. I'm your host, Tom
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  Moore. The Akron game in one hundred and fourteen days, the game against
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  Michigan in two hundred and five days, and as we are counting down the
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  days to the season, we are finally at the point where you feel like
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  most college football teams have more or less taken on their final forms. The
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  spring portal window closed about a week ago, and now as teams are sort
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  of maybe taking on one or two final players to kind of round out their
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  rosters, we wanted to take a look at who Ohio State might be looking
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  at to potentially add to the twenty twenty four buck Eyes and perhaps beyond.
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  We're going to be doing that with our buddy, Tony Gerdimant bucke Huddle dot
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  com. Tony, I guess before we really dive into this, let's just
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  take a look at the portal overall in the post spring window. And while
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  it was crazy, crazy busy after the season during the December and January window,
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  it feels like the post spring window just you didn't see as many guys
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  in there, and you really didn't see as many really top level guys getting
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  in there as maybe we were expecting. Yeah, I think we were all
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  waiting for the next wave. We saw a bunch of stuff happening after the
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  season, and then you figured, well, once spring football is over,
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  players figure out where they are, they've had more time to field offers,
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  and all of those sorts of things, and more chaos will just ensue because
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  that is the nature of the game. Now you just expect all kinds of
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  craziness. And the craziness to happened was that Gosh, it just wasn't that
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  crazy, and it's still not that crazy. And I still chalk up some
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  of that to the fact that schools knew that some players were looking for more
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  and were able to come up with more. You know. It's kind of
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  some negotiations and things like that where the home school was able to to meet
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  the offer, meet the demand, keep a player home, keep a player
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  happy. And I think you when you have when you've got a few months
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  to do that rather than the two weeks after the season, you can put
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  together a better pracket, Jory a more you can do just a better job
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  of negotiating and conversing with the players. And there's probably also the guys who
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  are maybe looking at the portal. You go through spring, and if you
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  know a guy's looking at the portal, maybe you're giving him a few more
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  opportunities to showcase himself in practice, and maybe he comes out of Spring feeling
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  a little bit better about his chances or his opportunities to play that fall.
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  There's a lot of that and feels like the marketing piece of the keeping guys
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  out of the portal is probably getting put something coaches are thinking more about now
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  than in previous years. But whatever the reason, definitely not quite as robust
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  a portal portal group as we were thinking it could be going out of you
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  heading into this spring portal window. There definitely are some spots on Ohio State's
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  roster where they would have been interested in adding someone and may still be interested
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  in adding someone. Some of them are for this year. Some of them
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  may be more focused down the line a little bit, because this is,
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  as you may be aware, a pretty darn good Ohio State team, a
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  very veteran Ohio State team, and there's a lot of spots where they've already
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  added guys in the portal and they've already had guys returning from last year's team.
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  They didn't lose very many guys in the portal this spring either, so
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  you know they're not necessarily the bar too clear to be worth you know,
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  to be at worth adding to this year's team in terms of being on the
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  being a potential starter or even a potential rotation player is pretty darn high for
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  the buck Eyes this year, which is one thing that may eat the fool
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  of potential additions a little smaller than normal. But when you're looking at positions
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  where they might be looking to add someone, I think we've got to start
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  at safety, and that's a spot where there have been a couple of names
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  that we've heard are potential additions for them and nothing officially yet. But guys
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  who there has maybe been some communication with, and I don't think anyone here
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  is necessarily someone we're talking about as okay, they're looking to upgrade from Leathan
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  Ransom or Caleb Downs, or even Jordan Hancock if you want to lump him
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  in with the safeties, but you're looking maybe at depth guys. They have
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  lost a ton of safeties through the portal over the last year or so,
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  so you may be just looking to sort of fill out your roster. Who
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  are some of the guys there looking at there and where might they fit this
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  year and beyond. Yeah, I'm with you. The safety situation. There
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  was talk of some conversation between Ohio State and at Texas A and m transfer
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  safety Jacobe Matthews a week or two ago, and I haven't really heard much
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  about him with anybody at this point, but the name going around right now
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  is Michigan State sophomore safety Jaden Manghum or rather junior safety, started last year
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  ten games as a sophomore, started two games as a true freshman in twenty
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  t twenty two, including the game against Ohio State. And so really that's
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  the position that has been the busiest this spring for Ohio State. And like
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  you said, you lose Cedra Hawkins, you lose Jihad Carter. You you
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  want to I think you want to replace that veteran aspect that in the veteran
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  versatility of Jahad Carter, who had you know, a ton of starting experience
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  three years as a starter at Syracuse. Don't really know what to what you
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  would have gotten out of him this year, but you had the potential for
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  him to play. And I go back to the Youngstown State game last year
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  where you know, it was Mollie Cartford who got the start, and after
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  about two series it was determined Millie Cartford probably needs to come off the field
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  and kind of got benched and Jahad Carter was put in there. And that's
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  that's what he can do. Maybe he's not winning a job, but at
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  a moment's notice, you can put him out there. And so you you
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  lose that, you want to try to repla That's a very difficult thing to
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  try and do though, because when Jahad Carter came in from Syracuse last year,
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  he was looking at the battling for a starting job. That's not the
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  case this year, No, definitely not. And the bar to get on
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  the field is just I mean, this team is a substantially better team,
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  I think in a lot of spots, and a more veteran team than it
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  was a year ago. It just means, you know, that is all
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  good news for Ohio State and their fans. Just means the bar, too
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  clear to get on the field and be someone who's worth adding is probably higher
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  than it was a year ago. So that's safety another spot where I think
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  a lot of people were thinking and I certainly was thinking they're at least going
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  to take a peek in the portal and see if they might have someone who's
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  worth adding this year is the offensive line. This is another spot where the
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  bar to clear to get to be worth adding. This year is probably a
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  lot higher than it was this time last year. This time last year there
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  was just shy of open panic among the Ohio State coaching staff. But where
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  the offensive line stood this year, the baseline, I think is a lot
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  higher than it was a year ago. They've already added some talent through the
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  portal during the winter portal window, and it just looking at the names in
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  the portal. Other than guys like Caden Proctor who had a no contact tag
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  because he was going to do the boomerang transfer from Alabama to Iowa back to
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  Alabama, there just were not that many names in there that would represent an
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  upgrade from what Ohio State seemingly already has. Yeah, and you say,
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  take a peek at offensive line in the portal, I think they did more
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  than that. They were looking and there wasn't really anything there. And you
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  look there now and the names you've got to go way down to rankings just
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  to find somebody who's available. If you believe in the transfer portal rankings,
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  all of these guys are taken because of the value that they have. And
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  everybody's looking for offensive line because everybody loses offensive linemen, you know, they
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  hit the portal because it's been three years and so now you just you've lost
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  depth. And or you've got guys that start for two or three years at
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  a place that is smaller and they they bump up and so it's the constant
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  movement can can just take away from you as well. But they're not out
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  there for long and right now that they're all they've all found their their homes
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  and the music stopped a long time ago, and everybody has their chairs and
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  everybody is now locked in where they are and there's there's there are no upgrades
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  for O High State. Could you go get somebody for depth? Sure?
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  Are you going to you know, cost somebody that should be playing or somebody
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  that should be Like, you're gonna go get somebody. If you go get
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  somebody, then that means you know, fewer snaps for like a Tager Shabola
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  or George Fitzpatrick. Somebody that is isn't the long term plans, and so
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  it's really there's really no there there for the offensive line at this point.
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  There's certainly nobody that is like, if you get that guy that is a
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  starter on the offensive line, there's your fix at right tackle, not that
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  in these fixed, but that's your right tackle, so that Josh Fire can
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  go to right guard or there's your right guard. There's nobody that is a
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  better option than what they have a right guard with Lake Montgomery or Carson Hensman
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  or Seth Theclackland or Taker Shabolo or you know any of those guys. And
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  there's nobody that is better a better option at right tackle than Josh Friar.
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  So really there's nothing there. And I think if Ohio State fans want to
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  know what the status of the transfer portal offensive line is this year, get
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  to look at some of the guys who left through the transfer portal for Ohio
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  State. Enik Fromahi who left just a couple of weeks ago during that spring
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  portal window, and I think Ohio State fans a lot of them kind of
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  looked at the Cotton Bowl game and went good goodbye, see you piece.
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  You know, he was a contributor to Ohio State a little bit here and
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  there. He ended up going to Washington. I think people were thinking,
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  oh, maybe Hawaii, maybe somewhere in the Mountain West. Now he went
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  to Washington, like literally the team that played in the National Championship Game last
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  year. So you know there are if you were a transfer portal offensive lineman.
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  Boy, this is a seller's market right now because there is just not
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  a lot of guys in there, and there's a lot of people shopping for
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  offensive linemen. And I think the Buck guys did potentially solve their biggest issue
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  by bringing in Seth Maclaughland during that winter portal window. It feels like he
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  is kind of solidified to himself as the starting center and then opens Carson Hinsman
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  up to maybe solve that right guard spot. We'll see how that shakes out
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  over the course of the spring and summer as they get get head into the
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  fall camp top era or fall camp time there were you know, there are
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  a couple other spots where you know, they lost Allan Hayden to the portal.
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  Maybe they're looking for a running back. I think that's probably a pretty
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  hard sell at this point with you when you got Trevan Henderson and Quinchahn Judkins.
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  There are just not going to be that many carries available, And I
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  don't know that I saw a great fit there wide receiver. They're a little
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  thin there, but it just it feels like a lot of the places where
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  they're looking to add someone, whether it's running back, wide receiver, maybe
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  defensive tackle, they've already brought in a lot of you know, they've already
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  brought in a lot of talent. They brought in six transfers during that winter
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  portal window. And I just to your point, I just I don't know
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  that there's anything out there that represents a significant enough upgrade that it's worth bringing
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  someone else in at this point. Yeah, and you'd be putting somebody else
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  on the bench who could use that playing time and do something with it.
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  You look at receiver losing what they've lost, it's who's going to come in
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  and be like, Okay, I will fight to be maybe I can be
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  the sixth guy. It's you know, look what Julian Fleming did. He's
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  like, I want to go be a a top two receiver and he gets
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  de fence date and that sends John Parker Washington or no, not not him.
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  That was a few years back, but the Kandy Lambert maybe. But
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  so you know this domino effect, and it's you're asking a lot for a
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  running back to look at Ohio State and be like, can I can I
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  get past James Peoples and Sam Williams Dixon to be the third guy? And
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  do I really want to do that? Or can I go somewhere and start
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  or be the second guy? And so these rooms, the receiver room isn't
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  overly deep, the running back room isn't overly deep, but it's it's too
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  deep for a portal guy. And so that's that's the issue that they're running
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  into. And I'd say the same thing about defensive tackle. They've got two
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  guys that are established in ty Hamilton and Tyler Williams, and a bunch of
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  younger guys. But still, are you going to leave and come to Ohio
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  State and fight through all of these Ohio State level recruits to try to become
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  a backup defensive tackle? And the answers generally know, yeah, that there
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  is certainly an a pace to being a part of this kind of a team
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  where you're potentially a strong contender for the national championship. But if you're looking
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  for playing time, there are probably easier paths to the playing field, and
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  that this is why you generally see a lot more guys transferring out from Ohio
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  State than transferring in. This is definitely not Colorado. There is not There
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  are not eighteen starting jobs open this year for Ohio State by any means,
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  which is good news for Ohio State, but not necessarily great news if you're
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  looking to come to play for Ohio State. Not an easy path to the
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  playing field. But you know, there is not a Jonah Jackson, it
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  seems, out there on the offensive line this year. There's not even a
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  Josh Simmons necessarily out there on the offensive line to come in. And maybe
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  being up at BAA be a multi year starter, could be we'll see.
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  We will continue monitoring the you know, will they will they bring in a
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  safety that seems like probably the most likely spot you might see someone come in,
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  and that might be a multi year you know, not even necessarily a
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  this year starter kind of move. So probably not not quite as not quite
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  as exciting a portal go around as we were anticipating for this spring. But
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  when you have as many answers, as many questions answered as Ohio State does.
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  There are a lot of teams that are probably in much rougher shape without
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  having a lot of guys in the portal right now that they could add,
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  so probably pretty good news for Ohio State overall as far as those things go.
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  So there's been plenty of other very good news for Ohio State over the
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  last few weeks and months, and probably plenty more to come in on the
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  recruiting trail and much more. We are going to be following all of that
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  for you. Chris, Mark and Kevin on the road for their Southern swing
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  right now. Lots of great content coming in from all over the South.
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  They've been all through West Virginia and North Carolina and Alabama the first ever time
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  going to Alabama to talk to players, and Ohio State sort of broadening their
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  recruiting that a little bit, which means the boys are broadening their trip.
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  They'll be in Georgia and Florida and all over the South over the coming days
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  and weeks. You're going to want to get access to our huddle board presented
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  by Jeff Ruby Steahouse that is a member's only part of the website at buckeyehuddle
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  dot com. It's a great time to join because of course we are still
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  running our annual subscription sale. Get access to the site for a full year
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  for sixty nine ninety nine. It's like a forty percent discount, give or
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  take from the typical typical price. Sign up now get access to the Southern
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  Swing and all the other great content for you at buckeyehuddle dot com. That'll
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  do it for today. Thank you guys all for joining us. Have a
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  great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow.