Every major college football team, basketball team and the teams of America’s four big professional sports play Moneyball to some extent in 2026.
Moneyball, coined from Michael Lewis’ book cataloguing the MLB’s Oakland Athletics under general manager Billy Beane and the movie starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill of the same name, really boils down to resource management. Teams have a certain amount of money to spend on their roster. Moneyball is using data to determine the best allocation of those funds. Beane and his staff were innovators in the space to manufacture wins for baseball’s most impoverished franchise, but it's commonplace for both the rich and poor across American sports these days.
One of the most famous lines in the movie version comes when Beane, played by Pitt, is meeting with scouts to discuss how they’ll replace Jason Giambi, who finished first and second in MVP voting in 2000 and 2001 before his rookie deal ran out and the New York Yankees promptly snatched him from Oakland with a big contract.
“Guys, you’re still trying to replace Giambi. I told you we can’t do it,” Beane said in the film. “We can’t do it. Now what we might be able to do is recreate him. Recreate him in the aggregate.”
There is no replacing Caleb Downs at safety for Ohio State. There’s also no football equivalent of mathematically replacing the on-base percentage of three hitters, as is done in that scene; it’s a sport dictated by 11-on-11 cohesive plays, not a lineup of nine men taking turns in one-on-one matchups. But when it comes to recreating Downs’ impact on the field, in the aggregate? Earl Little Jr. keeps emerging as an essential part of the formula.
“Plays fast, plays twitchy, communicates well,” Ryan Day said on Tuesday. “Did a great job in the weight room with Mick (Marotti). So, all of those things you could just see naturally as he went into the spring. You felt like this was going to go well. Then you start to see his play on the field. First time we're tackling and scrimmaging, he's the first guy showing up, making tackles and making plays, and just jumped off the screen right out of the gate. So, good for him.”
Downs’ impact was felt everywhere, but some of the best accelerants he threw on Ohio State’s defensive fire came when he played in or near the box. That’s what enabled the Buckeyes’ best play in the 2024 College Football Playoff, where he often played 10 yards from the line of scrimmage in the middle of the field. The plan is for Little to play the nickel position and offer many of the same attributes in run support and covering the middle of the field.
Little emerged as a hard-hitting playmaker in his fourth year of college football at Florida State in 2025. He racked up 76 tackles with two tackles for loss, four interceptions, two pass breakups and two forced fumbles.
“Certainly a great player at Florida State,” defensive coordinator Matt Patricia said. “A guy that's always around the ball. I mean, this guy just had an instinct and a knack for being around the ball. So I love that ability, that football ability about him. So hopefully we can use some of that for sure.”
Little’s versatility and ability to drop into deep coverages when needed are other assets that can help replace pieces of what Downs did in Ohio State’s defense in 2024 and 2025. Little played 376 snaps at free safety, 226 in the box and 65 in the slot with the Seminoles in 2025, per Pro Football Focus. He provided decent coverage, allowing 14 receptions for 168 yards in 21 targets, an average of eight yards per target.
He’ll want to improve on those numbers in 2026, and on the 15 tackles he missed with the 76 he made, but there’s no doubting his nose for the football. He’s shown dedication early, which is probably a reason why he became one of the first two players to shed his black stripe this offseason on Saturday, joining former LSU wide receiver Kyle Parker.
“He's somebody that saw what we did last year and I think really liked the scheme part of it,” Day said. “But the feedback we're getting from him is he really enjoys the culture, loves the competitiveness. So, he's been a bright spot.”
Little comes from a great pedigree, the son of former NFL safety Earl Little. A composite top-110 prospect out of high school and the No. 70 prospect in 247Sports transfer portal rankings this cycle, Little’s career started at Alabama, where Buckeye transfer defensive linemen James Smith and Qua Russaw and cornerback Cam Calhoun arrived from this offseason. He played his high school ball at American Heritage High School in Florida, where he was teammates with Ohio State wide receiver Brandon Inniss.
“The guys know him,” Day said. “Brandon sort of grew up with him. Jeremiah (Smith), some of the South Florida guys know Earl. And then obviously, the Bama guys know Earl from when he was there. So I think he quickly assimilated in terms of just socially with the guys.”
There’s no replacing Downs. There’s probably no recreating him either, in honesty. But recreating his role in the defense? Little is a critical cog.
“He’s gonna hit, he's gonna make plays,” Jeremiah Smith said. “He’s gonna be very special for us, that's all I can say. Don't wanna put too much out there.”
