Ohio State Always Evaluating Possible Opponents, Future Transfers

Ohio State head coach Ryan Day has labeled this week as an “improvement week” for his football team. With no game this week, the Buckeyes are evaluating themselves and working to repair any issues that have popped up in the first two weeks of the season.

Behind the scenes, they are also working to prepare for any possible issues that may pop up in the postseason and in the transfer portal once the season is over.

With a 12-team playoff on the horizon, it’s never a bad idea to start getting an idea of what the nation’s other top programs are looking like. And while it’s too early for a full-blown scouting report on any other teams than the ones currently on OSU’s schedule, there is cursory work being done right now.

Some of that job falls to Ohio State’s college scouting coordinator Billy Homer, who is evaluating players from all over the nation to give the Buckeyes a head start on the scouting of future transfer portal entries.

“It’s a big job,” Day said of what they ask Homer to do.

Ohio State’s football department is structured so that everybody in the football building is always looking to make sure that they are “staying up with the times.”

Especially in the scouting department.

“That’s something we did a couple years ago to make sure that we were ahead that way,” Day said. “Which is good too because it gives us some feedback on the teams that we’re playing because not only is he looking at our opponents and the personnel there, but he’s also looking at it for down the road and possible guys that may go into the portal. So to answer your question, yeah, we’re looking at our future opponents because we’re evaluating anyways.”

As college football begins to morph more and more into the professional model with General Managers and revenue sharing, the scouting departments are changing as well.

“It’s almost like in the NFL, you have the college scouting department, then you have the scouting department where they’re looking at all the free agents and guys in a league. It’s the same thing here,” Day said. “We have the guys evaluating high school, but then also the guys that are playing in college. So we’ll evaluate all those guys and get personnel information as time goes on.”

The Buckeyes are only two games into the season, but the expectations from most are that they will be playoff bound. With less turnaround time than ever on preparing for postseason opponents, the work being done now will speed up the process come this winter.

So how much time is Day spending with that information right now?

“It’s still a little bit early, but we have friends too who are out there who see some different teams and we just want to get an idea of what’s out there,” he said. “So yeah, I’m constantly asking what’s going on, what’s out there because as we look ahead, we’ve got to know what we’re up against. And not that we’re focused on any of that stuff, but it is good to know and just get an idea of what’s going on across the country.”