“It Can’t Be A Year-to-Year Roster at Ohio State”: Ryan Day Wants Recruiting, Development to Remain Foundation for Buckeyes

After a transfer-heavy Indiana team won the national championship this past season, Ohio State brought in its largest class of transfer additions ever, signing 17 scholarship players through the portal this offseason. The Buckeyes also had more transfer exits this offseason than ever before, with 31 scholarship players leaving the team through the portal.

In an era of college football where bringing in experienced veterans who have proven themselves elsewhere is proving to be a winning strategy, Ohio State is clearly adapting, as evidenced by the Buckeyes signing 15 scholarship transfers this offseason who are in at least their fourth year of college football. But the Buckeyes also brought in their largest freshman class in the last 25 years by signing 28 scholarship players in the 2026 recruiting class.

Day doesn’t know if Ohio State will sign such large recruiting classes going forward. He said the Buckeyes anticipated having more roster turnover this year because there were players who likely would have entered the transfer portal last year that didn’t because of Ohio State’s national championship run. But the Buckeyes will continue to make recruiting high school players and developing them over multiple seasons a priority.

“I think philosophically, when you look at it, I think it's important to still make sure that we're recruiting really good high school prospects and getting them into the program. And making sure we're developing them at a high level,” Day said Friday on The Ryan Day Show. “I think anytime you want to sustain a certain level of play, you need to have a culture that carries over year to year. It can't be a year-to-year roster at Ohio State, in my opinion.

“Now, maybe it gets to that point somewhere along the line, but I think for a lot of reasons, it's important to bring in young men and develop them. So although the landscape's changed, we're going to try to make sure that we do that. For a lot of reasons. I think it's important to carry over our culture, so that we don't just start from scratch completely.”

After losing 11 starters from last season, including seven on defense, Ohio State needed to bring in some veteran transfers who could make an immediate impact to bolster its chances of winning a national championship in 2026. The Buckeyes ultimately landed a transfer class that 247Sports ranked as the fifth-best of any team this offseason. 

Day is pleased with what the Buckeyes were able to add to their roster, noting that Ohio State continued to be intentional about who it brought in even though it signed more transfers than years past.

“I think it's been a good portal run for us. Fit the needs that we needed to,” Day said. “Made sure that we were thoughtful about it, but also there's a lot of other things to take into consideration. You can't just go wild with some of the stuff you have to do. There's a lot of constraints and things that we gotta work through.”

One of those constraints was the Buckeyes’ efforts to retain their returning players. As the Buckeyes used a significant portion of their revenue-sharing money to pay players already on their roster that they wanted to keep, they had to be smart about how much money they promised to incoming transfers.

“It's important for us to retain the guys that we have,” Day said. “When you look at the starters coming back from last year, I think there was really only one starter (right guard Tegra Tshabola) that ended up in the portal. The rest of them, we retained. That's a really important thing for us year in and year out. And I think when you first look at it, I don't think people quite realize the amount of resources it takes to retain a roster of starting players at Ohio State, because everybody in the country wants those guys.”

“It can't be a year-to-year roster at Ohio State, in my opinion.”– Ryan Day on the importance of recruiting, development and retention

The other reason the Buckeyes don’t want to go overboard with transfer additions is that they want to continue to give young players the opportunity to develop over multiple seasons and become impact players at Ohio State. While numerous transfer additions have made major impacts at Ohio State in recent years – like Caleb Downs, Will Howard and Quinshon Judkins, to name just a few – a majority of the Buckeyes’ stars have still been players that Ohio State recruited out of high school and developed over multiple seasons, and Day wants that to remain a core part of their program.

“I think that's critical to make sure that we continue to do that. I think it's important for the fans, that year in and year out, they know these guys. And then also for our players to know what it means to be a Buckeye, and being here for multiple years and pouring into and investing into a program,” Day said.

“We've all seen the development of a year into our program, two years into our program, three years into our program, four or five years in our program, and there's a value to that, for a lot of reasons. Not only are they more mature, but they also have poured into this program. They've invested in this program, they're now experienced, they've played in games, they've played in the Horseshoe, they've played on the road, they've played in the playoffs, and all those things. So that's the first thing: Bring in high school players, and then retain them and develop them over time.

“Now, we know that that's not as easy now as it's been in the past … there's some teams that strictly recruit out of the portal, and that's good. That's part of it. But to me, when you do that, you have to teach them the culture and it takes time to bring somebody in and understand what goes on, especially in a place like Ohio State. And so you say, ‘Well, just go find a guy in the portal who does this’; well, first off, there’s only so many players out there, and then the skill sets, the makeup, the background, the injury history, there's a lot of boxes you have to check here. So you don't just go out and grab a guy, and then all of a sudden he just fits perfectly all the time. It doesn't work that way. So we're very thoughtful about that and how that works, because we know what it means to be a Buckeye here and making sure they understand what goes on. It can't just be transactional.”

Realistically, it’s inevitable that a significant number of Ohio State’s new freshmen will finish their careers elsewhere. That’s already been true for even Ohio State’s most successful recruiting classes in recent years; the ballyhooed 2021 class, for example, had just 10 of its 23 members finish their careers at Ohio State, albeit with all 10 of them becoming Buckeye stars and NFL draft picks. Eight members of Ohio State’s 26-man 2025 class have already transferred out after just one year; only 11 of Ohio State’s 22 signees in 2024 remain Buckeyes after two years.

That said, Day believes Ohio State’s 2026 freshman class is full of players who want to be Buckeyes for multiple years and who have the potential to develop into foundational players for Ohio State over the course of their careers.

“We feel like these guys want to be here, they want to graduate from here. They want to reach the goals of winning the rivalry game, winning championships here. All that comes into play. And so I'm very impressed with this (freshman class) as a group.

“I think if you talk to people in the program and in the building right now, they're very impressed with the makeup of these guys. I think there's a lot of potential, like listening to (director of sports performance Mickey Marotti) talk about what they look like on the field and running and all those things, excited. But also just their makeup. Guys are showing up on time, they're communicating well, they're doing a good job already academically, just very serious about what they do. So that part's really good, and that's the foundation of our program.”