Who is Ohio State in 2025? New-look Buckeyes will begin search for identity in spring game

It was only a few months ago when the confetti was falling and the Ohio State Buckeyes stood on the field of Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta celebrating their first national title since 2014. It was a moment of vindication for all the players who chose to return for another year, as well as for coach Ryan Day, who suffered so many slings and arrows for repeated losses to Michigan.

Now … they start over again.

Ohio State is favored to win the national title again at most major sportsbooks, but like all futures markets at the moment, there seems to be a lot more hoping for the best than proof of concept. Yes, the Buckeyes are your reigning champs, but when this team takes the field at Ohio Stadium on Saturday for its spring game, Ohio State fans will need to learn more about this team ahead of the 2025 season. 

Looking at Bill Connelly’s returning production rankings at ESPN, which don’t simply add up snaps taken but factor in a number of different stats and weigh them differently based on positions, Ohio State ranks 101st nationally in returning production. They’ve lost their starting quarterback, top two running backs, key starters on the offensive line, nearly the entire defensive line and star wide receiver Emeka Egbuka. 

Do you get the point yet? 

Good, because I’m not finished.

They also lose offensive coordinator Chip Kelly — back to the NFL with the Las Vegas Raiders — and defensive coordinator Jim Knowles — now in the same position at Penn State. They’ve been replaced by the promoted ace recruiter Brian Hartline and longtime NFL assistant Matt Patricia, respectively.

In a time when many in college football are wondering what the future of spring practices and games will look like, we should be grateful Ohio State is having the traditional game. And perhaps they’re only doing so because they need it to figure things out!

There will be plenty of attention on the battle for the starting quarterback job. As of this week, Day maintains that it’s an open competition and too close to call, as Julian Sayin, Lincoln Keinholz and Tavien St. Clair continue to trade blows. In theory, this isn’t altogether unbelievable. All three are short on experience but long on potential. Both Sayin and St. Clair were five-star prospects out of high school. Keinholz was a high-four-star and the No. 11 QB in the 2023 class.

Notre Dame QB, Arch Manning weapons among key position battles as college football spring practices conclude

Chip Patterson

“It’s been three guys getting after it across the board, improvement,” said Day following a recent practice that was open to the media. “Nobody is much further ahead of the other one.”

Still, logic dictates this is Sayin’s job to lose. Sayin — who, ironically, was compared to former Michigan QB J.J. McCarthy out of high school — originally committed to Alabama in the 2024 recruiting cycle and enrolled in January 2024. A few weeks later, he transferred to Ohio State.

Considering quarterbacks don’t come cheap in the portal, and Keinholz was already on the roster when Ohio State decided to go after Sayin, well, that old quote about actions speaking louder than words should be ringing in your ears right now. Meanwhile, St. Clair might be an incredible talent, but he’s been on campus for a few months.

No matter who wins the battle, the Buckeyes will enter the 2025 season with an inexperienced starter at QB playing under a first (or is it second?) time playcaller in Hartline. Their first game together will be a College Football Playoff semifinal rematch against Texas — not exactly what you’d consider a soft-launch opponent. I suggest throwing the ball to Jeremiah Smith, one of the few familiar faces, and hoping for the best. It usually works out.

On defense, we’re not only dealing with players stepping into new roles, but it could be a new approach as well. Patricia has experienced plenty of success as a defensive coordinator at the NFL level, but this will be his first time calling defensive plays at the college level, and there’s a difference between calling a defense for teams full of NFL players and a team of hopeful NFL players.

How will he adapt to having players who aren’t as technically refined? Will there be schematic changes from what Knowles did last year?

We won’t get these answers in the spring game. Hell, we probably won’t have definitive answers before October. The point is that last year nobody had to ask these questions about the Buckeyes. You knew. The only question was whether the team could execute and achieve its goals.

One thing we don’t have to question is the talent. You never have to scroll far down the list of top recruiting classes to find Ohio State, which rarely falls out of the top five. It’s that collection of talent that has the Buckeyes as your national title favorite despite all the questions because we’re still at a place where talent trumps all.

The age of NIL and the transfer portal has changed a lot of things in college football, but it’s still talent teams are after. The only thing the portal has truly changed is the ability to horde that talent the way the top programs had been able to do for so long.

We may not have a great knowledge of who the new Buckeyes will be as far as individuals, but we know that as a collection, they’ll be better than the team lining up across from them nearly every week. We also know that, in an expanded playoff era, great teams are afforded a greater margin of error. If the Buckeyes open the season with a loss to Texas, it doesn’t crush their playoff hopes. The realistic hope in Columbus is that the Buckeyes we see in November will not only be more experienced than the ones we see in September but better, too.

But November is still a long way off. This Saturday, in the spring game, we’re all just trying to figure out who’s who.