Real Pod Wednesdays

While Ohio State’s primary focus right now is on competing for a national championship in 2024, it’s also working toward building its roster for the future. With high school football camps and official visits ongoing at Ohio State this month, the Buckeyes are in the heart of their efforts to build their 2025 recruiting class. Those efforts have gone quite well so far as Ohio State currently has th...

The busiest recruiting month of the year is underway. Ohio State has already hosted its first 10 official visitors of June, netting the Buckeyes their first commitment of the month from running back Bo Jackson . Camp season begins at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center on Wednesday as the Buckeyes will host seven high school football camps – five skill camps and two 7-on-7 tournaments – over the next...

College sports are about to change in a big way. As part of a settlement of three antitrust lawsuits last week, the NCAA committed to allowing schools to share revenue with their athletes beginning in 2025, ending the NCAA’s longstanding ban on schools paying athletes. We spend this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays discussing why it was time for the NCAA to embrace revenue sharing, how the ch...

There hasn’t been much that’s noteworthy in Ohio State’s spring transfer portal movement. The Buckeyes added some key depth at safety in the form of South Carolina’s Keenan Nelson Jr., but no players that will make an immediate impact have been or appear likely to be added to the team in the second portal window. With Dan Hope on vacation, Eleven Warriors producer Chase Brown joined Real Pod Wedne...

Depth could be as important as it's ever been for college football’s national championship contenders in 2024. With the eventual national championship game participants facing the possibility of playing as many as 16 or 17 games this season, Ohio State coach Ryan Day said this spring the Buckeyes need to have depth they can rely on at every position as they set their sights on winning it all. “We'...

The spring transfer portal window has come and gone without Ohio State losing any key players. Six players from Ohio State entered the portal during the spring window, but none of them – running back Dallan Hayden, wide receiver Kyion Grayes, guard Enokk Vimahi, linebacker Nigel Glover and safeties Ja’Had Carter and Cedrick Hawkins – were in line to play major roles for the Buckeyes in 2024. As a...

The post-spring transfer window has been quiet so far for Ohio State football but plenty busy for Ohio State men’s basketball. While there’s still one week to go in the post-spring transfer window for college football, Ohio State has seen just two players leave the program since the end of spring practice. That goes hand in hand with what’s been a much quieter-than-expected post-spring transfer wi...

Spring football showcased how much talent Ohio State has on its 2024 roster, but two of the biggest question marks surrounding this year’s Buckeyes. Quarterback and offensive line have been the biggest positions of concern for Ohio State dating back to this time last season, and that didn’t change this spring. While Will Howard still looks like the frontrunner to start at quarterback for the Bucke...

Ohio State’s spring game will be headlined by a quarterback competition for the second year in a row. While Will Howard entered the spring as the frontrunner to start at quarterback, the competition has heated up over the past five weeks. Not only is Devin Brown pushing Howard for the starting job, but true freshman Julian Sayin is becoming a real factor in the competition, adding intrigue to Satu...

There’s been no shortage of Ohio State football and basketball happenings over the past week. On the gridiron, Ohio State has now completed 10 of its 15 spring practices, highlighted by its Student Appreciation Day scrimmage on Saturday. Jeremiah Smith and C.J. Hicks are among the Buckeyes turning heads on the practice field while quarterback and offensive line remain Ohio State’s biggest question...

The offseason is officially underway for both Ohio State basketball teams. Ohio State’s men’s basketball season ended Tuesday with the Buckeyes’ loss to Georgia in the NIT quarterfinals while the women’s basketball season concluded with an upset defeat to Duke in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. While both teams had hopes of continuing their seasons further, the focus for both teams now tu...

Ohio State men’s basketball has a new head coach while Ohio State football has an unexpected opening for a running backs coach. Both teams have championship expectations. The Ohio State basketball coaching search ended over the weekend when Jake Diebler was promoted from interim coach to head coach. While Diebler has never been a full-time head coach before, making it anyone’s guess how he will ul...

It’s a season-defining week for Ohio State men’s basketball. The Buckeyes are headed to the Big Ten Tournament with a chance to earn their way into the NCAA Tournament, but they’ll need to win at least two games in Minneapolis – which means beating an equally desperate Iowa team and a top-15-ranked Illinois team – to have a real shot of landing a spot in the bracket on Selection Sunday. Meanwhile,...

Ohio State doesn’t have as many holes to fill this spring as it usually does, but there’s still plenty to talk about after the Buckeyes’ first spring practice. The biggest headlines from the first day of spring practice included Sonny Styles’ move to linebacker, Luke Montgomery starting the spring as the first-team right guard and Devin Brown getting his shot to compete for the starting quarterbac...

The start of spring football is less than one week away, Ohio State men’s basketball could play its way back into NCAA Tournament contention, a frontrunner has emerged in Ohio State’s coaching search and the NFL Scouting Combine is underway. That gives us a lot of ground to cover on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays, and we discussed it all in a little more than 80 minutes. With Ohio Stat...

There’s finally something positive to talk about with Ohio State men’s basketball. After struggling through most of January and February in Chris Holtmann’s final weeks as head coach, the Buckeyes started Jake Diebler’s interim coaching tenure off with a bang by upsetting No. 2 Purdue, 73-69, to earn their biggest win of the season in their first game following Holtmann’s firing. Could that win sp...

What will Chip Kelly bring to Ohio State’s offense? We called in our X’s and O’s expert to help us break it down. Eleven Warriors football scheme analyst Kyle Jones joins us on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays for an in-depth conversation on what Ohio State’s offense could look like with Kelly calling the plays as the Buckeyes’ new offensive coordinator. Our conversation with Jones touch...

A lot has happened in Ohio State football over the last five weeks, and Ryan Day still has to hire at least one more coach for the 2024 season. Ohio State reporters had their first chance to ask Day about everything that’s happened as he held his first press conference since the Cotton Bowl on Wednesday, giving us a lot to talk about on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays. We start, however...

We begin this week’s episode by talking about the big news of the week up in Ann Arbor, where Sherrone Moore is now the head coach following Jim Harbaugh’s departure. While we agree that Moore was the right choice to succeed Harbaugh, we foresee a challenging season ahead for the defending national champions as they replace their head coach, several other key assistants and the majority of their s...

Ohio State’s big start to the offseason got even bigger over the past week. The Buckeyes added the best safety in the country to their roster with the transfer of former Alabama safety Caleb Downs. They added the top quarterback in the 2024 recruiting class with the transfer of former Alabama quarterback Julian Sayin. And they added an offensive coordinator with impressive qualifications in Bill O...

The Ohio State football team’s 2024 roster is loaded – especially on defense. With TreVeyon Henderson, Emeka Egbuka, Donovan Jackson, Jack Sawyer, JT Tuimoloau, Tyleik Williams, Denzel Burke, Jordan Hancock and Lathan Ransom all choosing to stay at Ohio State for another year rather than enter the 2024 NFL draft, Ohio State’s roster could be the best in the country. The Buckeyes’ defense, in parti...

The past week has been full of both good and bad news for Ohio State. Michigan won the national championship on Monday, forcing Buckeye fans to watch their archrival celebrate college football’s biggest prize. On a better note for the Buckeyes, Ohio State added three key pieces via the transfer portal to its offense over the past week: Former Kansas State quarterback Will Howard, former Ole Miss r...

Ohio State’s offensive performance in the Cotton Bowl was unlike any we had seen since Ryan Day came to Columbus. The Buckeyes’ three points and 203 yards of offense against Missouri were both by far the worst totals put up by an Ohio State offense in any game since OSU’s 2016 College Football Playoff semifinal loss to Clemson. That game, in which the Buckeyes failed to score any points, led to an...

Ohio State’s 2023 season finale has arrived. While the Buckeyes aren’t playing for a national championship as hoped, they still have an intriguing matchup to wrap up the year as they take on No. 9 Missouri in the Cotton Bowl on Friday. While the game might mean more to Missouri than it does to Ohio State, the Buckeyes are still plenty motivated to conclude their season with a victory to take some...

A crazy National Signing Day meant we had to re-record Real Pod Wednesdays. Ohio State signed all but one player it was supposed to – that is, assuming Jeremiah Smith ultimately submits his National Letter of Intent, which he hadn‘t yet as of Wednesday night – but the twists and turns of the day, which unfolded amid Ryan Day’s press conference , were such that we felt we had to record a fresh epis...