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Vo. 1, No. 37
This week in Ohio State football, we’re gonna talk about… football!
That might sound crazy, but I thought it would be a nice change of pace after perhaps too much College Football Expansion talk after the last two weeks.
We will still have a little of it, but not until the end when we get into the links (I promise!).
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How much will the transfer portal impact Ohio State’s season?
The Athletic published a list of the top 100 transfers for the 2026 college football season, and I found it interesting for a few reasons.
First of all, Ohio State has four players on the list who might all start on Matt Patricia’s defense:
24. Earl Little Jr.
60. James Smith
69. Terry Moore
86. Christian Alliegro
Also worth noting: Only one of Ohio State’s out transfers made the list.
Tegra Tshabola shows up at No. 96 after opting to finish his career at Kentucky. His inclusion is interesting since he was, after all, a two-year starter for the Buckeyes… but he also wasn’t very good. Or at least he wasn’t consistent enough to be a reliable player, especially last season.
Perhaps the light goes on for him with the Wildcats. He’s a very pleasant interview and an engaging guy who seems like he will do well in whatever walk of life he enters whenever he is done playing football, but this might be a good bit of addition by subtraction for Ohio State, too.
“OK,” you say, “Ohio State has at least four impact transfers, but how many of these guys will the Buckeyes face?”
Quite a few:
1 Cam Coleman, Texas WR (formerly of Auburn)
6 Josh Hoover, Indiana QB (TCU)
9 Melvin Siani, Texas OT (Wake Forest)
11 Rasheem Biles, Texas LB (Pitt)
13 Koi Perich, Oregon S (Minnesota)
14 Hollywood Smothers, Texas RB (N.C. State)
16 Nick Marsh, Indiana WR (Michigan State)
17 John Henry Daley, Michigan DE (Utah)
19 Tobi Osunsanmi, Indiana DE (Kansas State)
21 Raheem Brown, Texas RB (Arizona State)
25 Jontez Williams, USC CB (Iowa State)
27 Joe Brunner, Indiana OG (Wisconsin)
32 Smith Snowden, Michigan CB (Utah)
44 Terrell Anderson, USC WR (N.C. State)
65 Bo Mascoe, Texas CB (Rutgers)
90 Anthony Colandrea, Nebraska QB (UNLV)
92 JJ Buchanan, Michigan WR (Utah)
100 Owen Chambliss, Nebraska LB (San Diego State)
As you can see, Texas, Indiana and Michigan all had significant additions, especially the Longhorns and Hoosiers.
Texas added a No. 1 receiver and two running backs to enhance Arch Manning’s arsenal while Indiana found another new quarterback, front-line receiver, a pass rusher and fortified its offensive line.
On the flip side, a few notable players will no longer face Ohio State this season because they left teams on the Buckeyes’ schedule: RB Justice Haynes (Michigan to Georgia Tech), DL Devan Thompkins (USC to Alabama), WR DeAndre Moore Jr. (Texas to Colorado), RB Quintrevion Wisner (Texas to Florida State), DL Tionne Gray (Oregon to Notre Dame) and LB Cole Sullivan (Michigan to Oklahoma).
How it all shakes out remains to be seen, but I thought it was interesting.
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How many top quarterbacks will Ohio State see this fall?
Along the same lines, Bill Bender at the Sporting News published his list of the top 25 quarterbacks in college football this week.
That includes Julian Sayin at No. 5 plus five signal-callers set to face the Buckeyes:
23 Bryce Underwood, Michigan
11 Josh Hoover, Indiana
7 Jayden Maiava, USC
6 Dante Moore, Oregon
5 Julian Sayin, Ohio State
2 Arch Manning, Texas
Obviously the jury is still out on Underwood, who has a strong arm and looks the part but seemed to regress as his true freshman season went on last fall.
He’s in a new offense that is built to showcase dual-threat quarterbacks, but is he actually that? He seems to have the attributes, but he looks a little awkward in the open field. Perhaps that was a coaching issue, but we’ll see. They really needed his legs to enhance their offense against Ohio State last fall and didn’t really use them.
Manning probably wants some revenge on Ohio State after struggling in the opener last season. Is he ready to take the next step to become a superstar? The measurables are there, but only time will tell about the actual ability to read defenses and raise the level of teammates.
Moore is really the guy to watch at Oregon.
Ohio State got a bad break when he decided to stay in school. He’s a former five-star recruit with great arm talent who can run, too.
He’s already taken a team to the CFP, and if he improves much, he could be the best player in the country this fall. He’s also going to be playing for a new offensive coordinator.
Hoover is a wild card in Bloomington.
Bender notes he had nine touchdowns and eight interceptions on bases beyond 10 yards last season while Fernando Mendoza’s ratio in the same scenario was 25/4. If Hoover becomes as efficient as the 2025 Heisman winner look out, but I’m not sure how likely that actually is. Mendoza may be a unicorn.
What else is going on this week with Ohio State football?
The SEC kept CFP expansion alive for at least one more week, most notably with SEC commissioner Greg Sankey correctly observing, “I’ve never thought football was a tournament sport.”
And while Big Ten coaches are selfishly enthralled by the idea of making the CFP without having to get better, Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko dropped a truth bomb about perspective from him and his peers.
"We don’t have to find a number that allows everyone to get in," Elko said in Destin. "It’s OK for it to be hard to get into the Playoff. None of us (coaches) is answering for the good of the sport. We are answering for the good of ourselves.”
Testify!
Over at PressProsMagazine.com, my college Jeff Gilbert also penned a stirring rejection of the Big Ten’s pet plan for ruining CFB.
In the meantime, there will be at least one more season with a 12-team playoff, and now we know when it will begin for Ohio State.
The 2026 season will kick off at not noon but rather 12:30 p.m. Sept. 5 against Ball State on the Big Ten Network.
(Defending national champion Indiana is getting the Big Noon treatment from Fox as the Hoosiers begin their preseason patsy tour against rebuilding North Texas.)
We also learned the third game of the season will be at noon on Fox against Kent State.
In Week 2, Ohio State will play Texas at 7:30 p.m. EST on ABC, but we already knew that.
BONUS CONTENT!
Aside from this newsletter, I’m also writing for Press Pros Magazine, the Associated Press and Men’s Journal these days.
(Not to mention sharing my thoughts on the premium message board at BuckeyeSports.com if you’re into that sort of thing.)
This week for Men’s Journal, I learned Jeremiyah Love loves peanuts (and they love him back), Playstation wants people teaming up to play games in June, and we’ve entered the longest possible summer.
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