Are The Buckeyes About To Land The Best Running Back In The Transfer Portal?

Are The Buckeyes About To Land The Best Running Back In The Transfer Portal?

Hello everybody Welcome to the Buckeye weekly podcast I am Tony German here as always with Tom or Tom how’s it going oh Tony good to be back good to be turning the page to 2024 boy there’s a lot to talk about already for the what is supposed to be

The offseason somehow it’s super busy right now on so many fronts for Ohio State yeah and let’s start off right now we don’t even enough banit Tom frankly I don’t care okay let’s talk about football and on Thursday of last week all Miss sophomore running back quinan Judkins enters the transfer portal and

You’re like oh got one year left in in college football he’s going to go ahead and cash in somewhere and um strange that she’d be losing old leaving Old Miss because Old Miss usually brings in the transfers and allows those guys to cash in for one year and so I I just

Expected him to end up somewhere I mean he’s from Alabama so that would have been you do the jir Gibbs type of thing you just move on over there I didn’t expect Ohio State to be getting involved but now he ends up tweeting from Columbus Ohio on Sunday night and

There had been Rumblings that Ohio State and he were talking and this is a real possibility no player in the SEC has had more carries last two years um no player in the in the country has had more carries than the last two years two-time all SEC performer how unexpected Tom were you

Caught caught off guard from this in terms of you see we see top guys enter the the portal every year now and it always like yeah Ohio State should get involved and then for like Ohio State to be uh seemingly involved here was this unexpected for you it’s a little bit of

A surprise is cuz when he F when his first name name first went in the portal you kind of checked on it it was like I don’t know that he and trivan Henderson are going to be able to coexist at running back you know that you would

Have two kind of running back number one guys in that room with the same time and trevan Henderson has not announced yet what his plans are for 2024 but behind the scenes you haven’t really heard that he’s strongly considering leaving it seems like it you know last last I heard

From anyone he was still sort of leaning towards coming back so if they get Judkins 2 and they keep Henderson I think it might represent a little bit more a little bit of a change of what are running backs looking for at the college level because trevan Henderson has not stayed consistently

Healthy so for him it would make sense to maybe split up the carries and lighten the load a little bit on him for 2024 for Judkins I mean as you said he the most carries in the nation the first two years how often do we talk about running backs and

You know their NFL draft decisions and you go pro as early as you can because there’s only so much tread left on those tires maybe you know you’re rotating the tires a little bit next year and maybe that takes a little less tread off of Judkins off of Henderson if they do and

This is not formal yet it’s not final yet but it certainly seems like it’s trending that direction at the moment so maybe this is a little bit of a change of how running backs are approaching things and if it is boy that seems like that’s working out just in time for it

To work out great for Ohio State yeah and if this did happen this would be the third Old Miss transfer for Ohio State in two years joining Davis osen and Taiwan Malone from last year when you look at what quinon Judkins has done 274 carries as a true freshman over 20 carries a

Game 271 last year in 13 car in 13 games over 20 carries a game 2725 career yards trayon Henderson by the way 2745 career yards Judkins with 31 rushing touchdowns I think Henderson has 32 in his career Henderson has about has 99 fewer career carries in his three years however than

Judkins does in his two years and this to me feels like a situation where it’s yeah hey wherever he ends up I just I kind of need need a break you know I’m perfectly fine splitting carries we know um trayon Henderson and Evan prior came in together they were perfectly fine with

The idea of of of uh sharing carries and so that where wherever he ends up whether trivan Henderson is at Ohio State whether it’s D Hayden whoever like the idea of sharing carries now is pretty common my question Tom is when you look at Judkins as a freshman

1567 yards rushing 5.7 yards per carry then as a sophomore only three fewer carries but he rushed for 400 fewer yards his average fell from 5.7 yards per carry to 4.3 yards per carry the offensive line 80% of it was back they brought in a transfer who beat out the

Last year’s left tackle so I it’s a same quarterback Jackson Dart both years I’m wondering and I have not had a good answer put forward in terms of why the quote unquote down year and 4.3 yards per carry for a Workhorse for somebody as good as Judkins is is is a

Down year and it’s very similar to J JK Dobbins in 2018 after the Fantastic 143 yards as a freshman to then just barely over a thousand yards his average DRFT from like 7.2 to like 4.1 or something like that in the span of a year so I’m

I’m curious as to why the dip if you have any insight on that Tom if you can tell me why but also it takes away none of the uh boy you should go get this guy Factor here yeah I don’t know that there is one good clean answer

To why the dip I pulled up the game by game numbers for him and he started the year real slowly I mean 2.7 yards per carry against Tain 2.8 against Georgia Tech and neither of those teams were incredible only 4.6 yards per carry against Mercer but when you get into

Sort of the heart of SEC play LSU 5.4 yards per carry 33 carries 177 yards Arkansas 3.6 so he kind of dipped down there Auburn 5.9 yards per carry Vanderbilt 7.3 yards per carry Texas A&M 4.4 and then last four games of the Season Georgia 3.4 Louisiana Monroe 3.6

Mississippi State 4.3 Penn State 3.1 in the ball game I think Tony to me that looks a little like a guy who may have just sort of worn down a little bit over the course of the year cuz in October the numbers are pretty darn good against SEC competition five 5.4 against

Louisiana state last day of September but close enough and 5.9 against Auburn 7.3 against against Vanderbilt and then it just kind of dips in in November and that’s where you typically see guys getting bruised and battered how many times have we talked to guys who will say you’re never 100% once the season

Starts that looks like a guy who was never 100% once the season started I have not gone back and pulled up Blake Corum stats uh over like the 2021 or 2022 Seasons By game maybe you can do that right now but you know he is someone who like this year 2023 he

Didn’t quite have that same load that he was carrying 2021 2022 he was just constantly in the high 20s low 30s and he obviously suffered that knee injury in the Illinois game in 2022 and then missed most of the Ohio State game as a result it feels like that might be you

Know just guessing here but you might see some of those same Trends with with Blake Corum have you had a chance to pull up the stats and prove me either right or wrong well just looking at because Blake corm didn’t have an end of season last year in terms of late season

And he was not the guy in 2020 won but this year his last 100 yard game was November 11th against Penn State his last four games averaging over 20 carries per game but it’s said 94 yards rushing 88 52 83 and it’s like in terms of yards per carry the last four games

3.4 4.0 3.3 4.4 so I the end of season type of thing and with that kind of workload and the simple fact of 30 four carries in the bow game against Penn State I would transfer after that like I’m in a bowl game what do you what

Are we doing here running me up the middle against Penn State’s defense 34 times this is supposed to be for the young kids you know and yes I’m a sophomore I’m still young but come on uh so I don’t I don’t fault him I guess for

For that but when you look at the last two seasons last year’s one of the most explosive running backs in terms of 20 30 yard rushes this year he had essentially the same number of 10 yard carries 39 this year compared to 42 last year but only six carries of 20 yards or

More this year compared to 19 last year last year eight carries of 30 yards or more and this year he had three just one carry over 40 yards nothing over 50 so he he’ get to the I guess into the past the first level but the second level

Wasn’t happening and if that’s just wear and tear better tackling uh you know what instead of looking at the offensive line blocking you should probably look at the wide receiver and tight end blocking that’s probably maybe the answer there in terms of why didn’t you have um a better

Season but uh it’s just interesting to see that kind of drop and of course when you do you’re like well what is the reason for that and generally not just one reason but again not something that anybody would have any concern about in terms of well you know if these as Tom

As you say if these Trends continue you so next year it’s you know 2.9 yards per carry it’s like what are you doing I’m not expecting that I also don’t think this mean yeah yeah I’m not expecting that and you know I think the comparison that has gotten put out there a little

Bit in terms of a former Ohio State running back is you look at the career of JK Dobbins JK Dobbins had the Fantastic freshman year sophomore year he ended up splitting carries that definitely is not the issue with quinon Judkins he ended up up splitting carries with Mike Weber his sophomore year and

Talked about how he was try constantly trying to hit a home run his sophomore year and then junior year sort of refocused and turned in one of the best running back seasons in Ohio State history put up a 2,000 yard season fantastic and you know when he was

Healthy and on the field boy he was he was Dynamite for the Buckeyes so you you could have a little bit of a bounce back from judkin sort of in that sort of mold but it may just be you know like I said getting run down just over the course of

The season because the numbers you know even if you go back to his F his freshman year the numbers dip to 4.1 and 4.0 in the bowl game after being 8.9 5.4 6.0 the three weeks before that so you know you you may have some of that you

Also just you become a little bit more of a known quantity once things go once once it’s like boy this running back from Old Miss boy he sure is running the ball a lot you start seeing defenses gear up a little more to stop that so

Maybe that’s a little bit of a factor this year and you know as you said the the outside blocking if you’re getting through the first level just fine and you’re not getting through the second level there’s a lot of other factors that can go into that so there’s there’s

A lot of possible explanations here I’m not sure we have completely uh completely explained everything but I also don’t think this is something where you look at those stats and go this guy is going to be terrible forever and never be any good that I definitely don’t think that’s that’s where this is

And he feels like he’s a pretty good match stylistically for what trayon Henderson does they may be pretty good complimentary backs yeah especially as much as Ohio State likes to run Henderson outside Judkins is a fantastic inside Runner and a guy that can bounce off tacklers as

We’ve seen I didn’t get to see too much of him this year watch quite a bit of him as a true freshman because I think you saw him more places as a true freshman because he was standing out so often um I I don’t think this means all

Of this interest means that trayan Henderson is gone I think we’ve been leaning to the fact that he’s returning and kind of just waiting for that announcement then then this comes in and it’s like well does this mean he’s gone but again Henderson came to Ohio state

With the idea of sharing carries and he’s done that his entire career he’s he he was one of those guys that bought in very early bought in during recruiting saying yeah the the the lighter the load the less wear and tear that you have that you’re taking with you to to the

NFL the NFL teams like that and I think obviously quinon Judkins knows that as well and you only have so many carries in you and right now trayan Henderson has had a pretty light load over his career hasn’t has not even achieved what he did as a

Freshman yet um in his last two years because of injuries and going into next year if they can they they needed to go to the portal to get somebody now this is more than just somebody if they can land him because coming into going into 2024 with

Just trayon Henderson and D Hayden when trayon Henderson has not been able to make it through a season since his freshman season that that’s that’s dangerous and of course you’re bringing bring in two freshman running backs but they want to have five scholarship guys this would

Give him that five but also would raise the level of those five considerably and then the question I I get a lot is like well what does this mean for D hay and it’s like it means that this is is this is Big Time college football that’s what this

Means yeah and he’s someone I mean what’s the classic line you need a pair and a spare and so having three running backs is you know with and not having to rely on a true freshman for that would be great does d haen stick around if he’s got you know I mean we’re

Projecting multiple decisions ahead yes we don’t know he is D Hayden has sort of forever been the guy who had the big game against Maryland two years ago and then everyone has sort of been waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and it just sort of hasn’t happened yet and

You know this is you’re past the transfer portal window so now this becomes a very big spring for D Hayden can D Hayden show that he needs those carries because Tony Alfred one of my favorite interview moments of the last few years with Tony Alfred being asked

How do I keep these guys happy you know how do you keep all these guys happy if you’ve only got one football to hand around and he kind of whipped his head around and said I don’t have to keep them happy they have to keep me happy

And you know I don’t know how much that’s you know the Dynamics may have changed a little bit that was probably three years ago at this point and with the transfer portal and nil and all that kind of stuff some of that power Dynamic may have changed a little bit but you

Know you’ve got to you’ve got to earn your way onto the field and we don’t get to watch practice and it sort of feels like at some point okay there’s something that is keeping him from playing and the explanation the public explanation for quite a while has been

Pass blocking and Blitz pickup and pass throw and all that kind of stuff whatever it is this is a very big spring for him to show that okay I have corrected whatever the issues were and you know can now get on the field and whether that’s just with Tran Henderson

Ahead of him or just with quinshon Judkins ahead of him or with trevan Henderson and quinshon Judkins ahead of him whatever it is you’ve got to be able to play up to that standard yeah and that’s another thing going to the portal is supposed to raise the standard of the room that that

Player is joining in they did it with David OS Jim noes has talked about that repeatedly about how it raised everybody’s play and you saw that this year going and get uh Josh Simmons raised a play there and he won a job ends up perhaps being the best offensive lineman in the

Class one one other aspect of this Judkins thing is I’m I’m also seeing a lot of people saying on Twitter on on the The Message Board what what good does it do if he’s running behind the offensive line that we saw at Ohio State this year and it’s

Like you’re talking about the cotton ball offensive line you’re not talking about the Ohio State offensive line that we saw in 2023 which was fine you want better than fine but the the memory of that cotton ball offensive line that’s not going to be the offensive line that you see next

Year for Ohio State so I think um worrying too much about that thinking that’s what you’re going to see as a waste of time because that’s not the offensive line that you’re going to see maybe a different offensive line coach maybe some different offensive lineman in there it will be better than that

Cottonball offensive line simply because that is the worst high State offensive line I have seen since maybe the Florida State game back in 1999 98 uh in the ball game after the 97 season where they just had no answer for the the Florida state pass rush but you

Know I do think the addition of Seth mcclaflin from Alabama adds to the bodies adds to the options but Tom do you agree that too much is being made of the offensive line play and the cotton ball regarding all of this yeah I well I think you right now you have Ohio State

Fans reacting to losses in the last two games and that’s something that is never going to sit well with the fan base it’s certainly not going to sit well with the Ohio State fan base and you know that cottonball performance was so such a historical anomaly the offensive line

Was not dominant this was not a Joe moral winning Joe Moore award-winning offensive line this year by any means but it improved over the course of the year and it was pretty okay throughout the course of the year and they ran the ball 37 33 times for 97 yards against

Missouri they were a little better than that against Michigan 107 yards on 28 carries so just shy of four yards a carry there against one of the best defenses in the country and then before that 215 yards against Minnesota 177 against Michigan State 139 against Rutters 181 against Wisconsin they

Struggled against Penn State but Penn State again one of the best defenses in the country they they were able to run the ball well enough against virtually everyone on their schedule this year that they you know they were not playing a bunch of tremendous offenses the defenses they played were by and large

Pretty okay so I I’m with you I don’t think that the cottonball is like a chilling portent of things to come for the Ohio State offensive line by any mean I think that more is a little bit of a one-off until you sort of see otherwise I just it was a sort of

Mishmash two guys in a different spot you know a guy who really has been has been at Ohio State for what five years now and had really not started except for here or there sort of emergency situations it certainly I think was a little bit of a maybe more of a wakeup

Call for Ohio State in terms of like hey you really need to address this with some additions because the depth isn’t there the starting five last year was fine as of right now Matt Jones is the only one who’s leaving Donovan Jackson still has to sort of make a decision if

Donovan Jackson is back and you’re only replacing one offensive lineman you have a second-year Luke Montgomery you have uh Seth mcclaflin coming in from from Alabama I know everyone wants to talk about the snaps and the Rose Bowl he started 25 games for Nick Sabin Nick Sabin does not start bad players for

Games that is uh one of the pretty consistent themes of the Nick Sabin era is pretty good players starting for him pretty much everywhere on the field so it certainly would be an you know an improvement over what Ohio state had if you know with if mofin is the guy or if

Carson Hinman is the guy or you know and then there’s there’s you’re giving yourself multiple options to improve things you want to kick Josh frier inside from guard and start look like I’m right tackle fine you want to put Josh put T shaba at Right Guard fine but

Like you’re you’re just giving yourself more options and if the Baseline is sort of where the performance was in 2023 it feels like you’re sort of again we’ve talked about this in in the context of will Howard bringing in additional guys you’re kind of raising the floor and there’s nothing that says

That they’re done bringing in new guys in the transfer portal either maybe you’re done for the month of febru the month of January the portal opens again after Spring ball and they brought in Josh Simmons after Spring ball last year they you know they are well aware that

That’s an option to improve their improve their play overall so yeah I don’t I don’t think the 2024 Ohio State Run game is a lost cause no matter what yeah and Carson hinsman won the job competing against Victor Cutler and Jacob James whoever wins the job the

Center job this year will be competing against better Talent than than last year and will make that player better one last thing Tom before we go because this is very difficult for me Jeremiah Smith watched him in the All-American Bowl this weekend had a touchdown on the first

Drive then rarely got thrown to after that because the quarterback’s not not great in terms of uh being able to drop back and have time to throw I have to put together my my annual too deep and I am confused as to what to do at receiver

Because I don’t know that there’s an answer yet so I would like for you to give me the to deep in terms of the X the Z and the slot so that I can go ahead and use that information to try to Cobble together an answer for myself go

Uh this feels a little bit unfair because we don’t officially know what AA abuka is doing yet feels like that’s going to be a pretty important part of the decision I’m assuming he’s coming back sort of TR has been towards he’s likely coming back so I’ll say he’s on

There how about if I just give you six names and then you can decide where they fit in terms of position because it feels like this is this is a great opportunity to be wrong about where one guy plays and that it has a Cascade effect that impacts like where four

Other guys play and it’s like how did you get none of the six right like well because of one guy it’s all his fault uh okay so let’s talk about the six guys the six guys are AA abuka assuming his back Carell Tate Brandon inis Jeremiah Smith I almost said Xavier Johnson just

Because I’m always I always get to this point of the of the list and Xavier Johnson’s always like the fourth or fifth guy that I say Jaden Ballard maybe I just I’m I’m kind of at the I kind of want to see it from Jaden Ballard because we sort of have

Have projected Jaden Ballard to be in this conversation so many times and it hasn’t happened yet milin Graham I would think maybe except he’s not coming in until the summer so that probably pushes him down the list a little bit um Noah Rogers and Bryson Rogers both just

Transferred uh Jeremiah M Oregon what’s that yeah yeah Cojo an Keon graay I mean Keon gra missed basically the whole season with injury so you really don’t know what you got with those guys it’s it’s crazy but they’re sort of thin at wide receiver which is you wouldn’t think that the way Brian

Harline recruits but the way Brian Harline recruits he’s bringing in all these guys who come in with you know high high four star or five-star talent and expectations and then when you’re not in line to start year two it’s like well why am I still here boy uh let’s see starters let’s say

Let’s say boy um you want to put AA abuka X and Carell Tate at Z and um Brandon innocent H and then Jeremiah Smith is the fourth Guys Somewhere thoughts it is funny you’re talking about we we agree that they’re thin but they’re kind of skinny fat you know at

The receiver position because they they’re I don’t know topheavy and then there’s we’re talking about a top six and I think we came up with like seven total names which is pretty concerning um but it’s we’ll see how things go I just wanted to get your thoughts on that

Because I’m trying to put it together and you could put mechuka any of the three spots because it’s like does he want to go be the Z like Garrett Wilson does he want to stay in a slot like Jackson Smith and jigman does he want to

Be the ex like Marvin Harrison I don’t know but we’ll find out and when we ask Brian Hartline this winter He he’ll probably say no idea we’ll find out when we find out so we’ll all find out together and the answer in the spring may be different than the answer in

September and that may be different than the answer in November everybody’s going to play in a slot just figure out how often and when so that will do it want to thank you all for tuning in might reminder find us at buckle.com become a member lots of new members there jump on

Board right now there’s still going to be plenty happening obviously that’s the offseason that’s when everything truly happens so uh go ahead hit thumbs up on this one get hit the Bell to be notified when we drop episodes go live uh instant reactions emergency shows all that sort

Of stuff so thank you all for tuning in and we’ll talk to you guys later

Two-time All-SEC running back Quinshon Judkins out of Ole Miss entered the transfer portal last week. Since then, buzz has been growing that he could be Ohio State bound.

In this episode of the Buckeye Weekly, Tony Gerdeman and Tom Orr discuss these developments, what it could mean for Ohio State, what it would mean for Judkins himself, how this would impact the current Buckeye running back room, and more.

The fellas also take a quick turn and talk about Jeremiah Smith’s performance at the All-American Bowl and wonder how the wide receiver two-deep is going to shape up at Ohio State next season.

Check out BuckeyeHuddle.com to get all of the best Ohio State Buckeyes coverage. Our team of contributors will have you up-to-the-minute with recruiting, team coverage and so much more. Join the fastest growing community in all of BuckeyeNation at BuckeyeHuddle.com

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