It’s not that Ohio State wasn’t willing to add to its defensive tackle room through the transfer portal this offseason; it’s just that no clear upgrades were interested.
The Buckeyes swung and missed on a few potential additions, like Syracuse’s Maraad Watson, but there weren’t a ton of options for clear improvements.
“It got to the point where there was just, for us, there was certain people that were in the portal, and the question was, ‘Are they better than what we have?’ And the decision that was made was no,” Ryan Day said at Big Ten Media Days on Tuesday.
Thus, the directive for Day and defensive line coach Larry Johnson is clear: Develop who is already in Ohio State’s defensive tackle room, because despite depth concerns, there’s no turning back.
“We've got to develop these guys. We got to get them stronger, we got to get more out of them,” Day said. “We got to maximize these guys, and that's what we got to do, and that's what the focus is going to be.”
Kayden McDonald and Eddrick Houston were stenciled in as Ohio State’s next starters at DT when 2023 and 2024’s top tandem, Tyleik Williams and Ty Hamilton, left the Woody Hayes Athletic Center. But the first name out of Day’s mouth when discussing the position on Tuesday came as a surprise.
“Will Smith has stepped up in a big way,” Day said. “We feel like K-Mac has done a good job. Eddrick's got to have a huge August for us, and then the list goes on because we’ve got to build some depth behind those guys.”
Will Smith Jr., the son of the late great former Ohio State defensive end Will Smith, has flown under the radar of conversations about the Buckeyes’ defensive tackle room this offseason. He missed the team’s spring game. He played just 35 defensive snaps as a redshirt freshman in 2024, eighth-most at the position.
Redshirt senior Tywone Malone and fellow redshirt sophomore Jason Moore both had more stars next to their names as high school prospects. Yet Day’s comment wasn’t the last time a Buckeye praised Smith ahead of both of them at media days.
“I think Will Smith is probably one of the guys that took the biggest jumps this year,” linebacker Sonny Styles said. “He's looking like an absolute baller. So I'm really excited for him.”
If Smith is taking a leap as gargantuan as Styles suggested, the question will then be whether he, listed at 6-foot-4 and 288 pounds, can handle nose guard duties to spell McDonald. That’s the primary issue facing Ohio State’s defensive tackle room right now, given that Moore and Malone are clearly in the mold of three-techniques within the scheme. Especially Moore, who struggled as the Buckeyes’ backup nose guard while Smith missed the spring game.
Should Smith truly emerge from the rest of the pack, he’d likely see work at both defensive tackle spots. In any case, he’ll be acting in support of a starting duo that Styles expects special things from.
“Kayden McDonald’s a monster,” Styles said. “I think he’s one of the best nose tackles in the country. Eddrick Houston’s a guy that came in at D-end, now he’s playing three-tech. And the way he's able to put on weight and hold it in a good way, and still be freakishly athletic, he's a great athlete. And he’s going to be a great player.”
Top to bottom, the focus this summer has been on pushing all the defensive tackles to be as physically ready as possible for another potential 16-game grind. Football is won and lost in the trenches, and trench warfare requires big guns.
“They've had very good summers,” Day said. “I think they're bigger, stronger. (Strength and conditioning coach Mickey Marotti)'s really pushed them. It's been a hard summer for them, and now they got to go do it.”
Ohio State’s defensive tackles know some doubt them entering this season. With Williams, Hamilton, Jack Sawyer and JT Tuimoloau all selected in the first five rounds of the 2025 NFL draft, the Buckeyes’ entire defensive line room is eager to prove its next wave is of the tidal variety.
“I have ultimate confidence in them being everything we need them to be this year,” Styles said. “I think they're going to exceed expectations. I know they have a chip on their shoulder in the defensive line room, they have something to prove. We lost four starters, and I know people are probably looking at the D-line with a question mark, but everyone in the building, we have ultimate confidence in those guys.”
