Potential, Attitude Could See Eddrick Houston Excel At Defensive Tackle

Position changes are nothing new at Ohio State. They happen almost every year for somebody, and last year it happened for Eddrick Houston.

Houston came to the Buckeyes as a five-star defensive end, but by the mid-point of his true freshman season last year, he was the backup defensive tackle behind senior starter Tyleik Williams.

And while position changes are not new, moving a five-star signee is a bit more rare. With any position change, however, the ultimate decider is the player himself.

Head coach Ryan Day has said it for years, but when it comes to moving a player to a new position, if that player isn’t in favor of it, there’s no point in moving them because they’ll never be able to maximize their potential at a position they don’t want to play.

Fortunately for the Buckeyes, that was not the situation they found themselves in last year when defensive line coach Larry Johnson approached Houston about sliding inside to defensive tackle.

“Well, I talked to Coach J,” Houston recalled this spring. “Coach J was the main one. He wasn’t forcing me or nothing, he just said, ‘If you want to move inside, you can. If not, stay at D-end and you can do that as well.’ But I saw that I could help the team out, so I chose to move inside.”

The Buckeyes were loaded with defensive end depth last year and were in need of help on the interior, so the move made logistical sense. It also made long-term sense.

“He can be a great pass rusher,” Johnson said this spring. “He’s really powerful, really strong. There is all the making of an opportunity for him to be a special player.”

Eddrick Houston has always been a bigger defensive end, so when the 6-foot-3, 270-pound freshman was asked if he wanted to make the move last year during the Buckeyes’ bye week, he didn’t hesitate.

What was the most difficult part of the transition?

“Really nothing, I embraced it,” Houston said. “I knew that I needed to move inside in order to help out the team.” 

Houston had the bye week following the loss at Oregon to pick up on as much as he could in order to be ready for Ohio State’s stretch run last year, but he wasn’t being rushed. This wasn’t about getting him ready for the Buckeyes’ next game, but rather for the larger task ahead.

“No, they were all in on me,” Houston said about feeling rushed. “Just whenever I’m ready, let them know how I feel about moving in or staying outside.”

Eddrick Houston’s freshman season was a learning experience. He finished with just seven tackles last season — six of which came after the switch to defensive tackle. He also had a pair of tackles in the national championship game against Notre Dame.

Houston now has some history to build upon, as well as a better idea of what he needs to work on before the 2025 season gets here.

“I just feel as though I need to get stronger,” Houston said, acknowledging that life is much different playing on the interior. “That’s taking on 600 pounds of men every play, so I know that I first gotta get stronger and I gotta get faster so I get my hands on them quicker.”

Houston may have been learning on the fly last year, but he was never learning alone. Tyleik Williams was there with him every step. Like Houston, Williams was also in the two-deep at defensive tackle as a true freshman back in 2021, so he had plenty of wisdom to share with him about his own freshman season and what he had learned over the course of his four-year career.

“The main thing he would tell me was stop overthinking everything, just go out there and play,” Houston said. “That really helped me because, you know, new position, trying to find my role and stuff, so it was pretty good to get his assistance on it.”

Houston found both his role and his footing towards the end of the season. He met with Williams a lot in those days, which helped him to see that what he was doing was effective.

“I felt comfortable, like, ‘Okay, I can actually do this,’ because he was showing me some strengths I have, like, ‘See, you can do this,’ and that really helped me get the confidence to know that I can,” Houston said.

The lessons he learned on the field and from his teammates last year will only help this year. Another important thing to keep in mind is that he was never a five-star defensive end just because of talent, but also because he worked at it — just as he is doing now at defensive tackle.

“I feel as though three tech is what’s best for me right now,” Houston said. “I feel like I can produce just as well as I do on the edge. I have the strength and speed to do it, so I just gotta keep working every day to keep getting better. “

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