Ohio State’s out of options for helpful defensive tackle additions in the transfer portal.
With Justin Kirkland's commitment to BYU on Thursday, the Buckeyes’ last target at the position came off the board. The window for new transfers to enter the portal closed on April 25, and each of the top 50 defensive line prospects in the 247Sports transfer rankings has selected a school already.
Defensive tackle was Ohio State’s top priority entering the spring portal window, but the Buckeyes aren’t taking players just to take players, nor should they.
“We want to make sure that when we bring somebody in, it has to be an upgrade to what we have,” Ryan Day said on Tuesday. “We're not just going to do it to do it. I think that we have looked and we're going to continue to look, but we're not just going to bring in someone just to do that, and so we'll continue to evaluate that.”
However, with the chances of upgrading at DT through the portal in the rearview, the state of the room is officially a concern moving into 2025 for Ohio State.
There’s a reason Day said after the Buckeyes’ spring game that they’d take a “hard look” at transfer portal options on the defensive interior. Whenever starters Kayden McDonald and Eddrick Houston came off the field during the exhibition, there were highway-sized running lanes opened up for running backs on offense. The offense averaged 5.9 yards per carry.
“Seemed to me like there was just a lot of knockback on the offensive side of the ball here,” Day said after the spring game.
McDonald and Houston weren’t the reasons a portal pickup felt so important for the position, although adding some proven production to blend with the duo of first-time starters would have been a plus.
Houston slid inside after entering Ohio State as a five-star defensive end prospect and quickly rose the depth chart to become the backup to starting three-technique DT and first-round NFL draft pick Tyleik Williams as a freshman. He made his first career start in Williams' stead against Purdue in November and played 55 total snaps in the College Football Playoff.
McDonald showed up in a few big moments off the bench for the Buckeyes in 2024, especially on perhaps the most vaunted goal-line defense in school history, where he’d align head-up on the center as an extra defensive tackle. He made pivotal plays in game-saving goal-line stands against Nebraska and Penn State, finishing the season with 19 tackles and 1.5 tackles for loss. He was a standout at Student Appreciation Day this spring, too.
Entering his junior year, McDonald is the defensive tackle Ohio State can feel most confident in. A 6-foot-3, 326-pound behemoth with a fast first step, he has a body type like none other in the room. But therein lies the issue: Who on earth is backing up McDonald at nose guard?
Barring a major surge from a first- or second-year prospect, the Buckeyes have three main options for depth at defensive tackle: Tywone Malone Jr., Jason Moore and Will Smith Jr. All three of them have primarily played three-technique defensive tackle, Houston’s position, to this point in their careers, with some cross-training at nose. None of the trio impressed at three-tech last season, let alone their less-natural nose guard position.
Moore was considered something between a defensive end and defensive tackle out of high school, entering Ohio State to strong acclaim as a top-70 national prospect. But after being called the “ideal” three-tech in the Buckeyes’ defense by defensive line coach Larry Johnson in the spring of 2024, Moore was a non-factor at the position last year, even in the few games that Williams missed. He played 57 snaps, seventh among the team’s DTs.
It could be a sign of desperation that Moore played some nose guard in the spring game despite his leaner 6-foot-6, 305-pound frame. On the Scarlet team’s second drive, Moore (No. 94) was knocked about two yards downfield and two yards left out of his gap by second-year backup guard Gabe VanSickle (No. 58) to clear a giant hole for a 20-yard CJ Donaldson run. It was emblematic of the Buckeyes’ nose guard play outside McDonald.
Malone was another four-star prospect out of high school and enters his redshirt senior season after transferring in from Ole Miss in 2023. He made his first career start last campaign in Williams’ place at three-tech against Marshall and impressed in that outing, but fell behind Houston on the depth chart after that, never playing more than eight snaps in Ohio State’s final seven games. He, too, is a leaner athlete by DT standards, standing 6-foot-4 and 301 pounds.
That leaves the redshirt sophomore Smith, the son of late Ohio State legend Will Smith, though he was a less-heralded prospect than Malone or Moore. He played 35 snaps last season and stands 6-foot-4 and 288 pounds.
It’s reasonable to hope that one of Malone, Moore and Smith can emerge as a serviceable relief option at three-tech. But no player on a defense takes more punishment than block-eating, table-setting nose guards. Expecting McDonald to play 60 or even 50 snaps every week for a potential 16-game season is unreasonable. And that doesn’t even consider injury chances.
If someone doesn’t step up in a big way, nose guard depth could remain an unpatched 320-pound hole in Ohio State’s roster.
