What Palaie Gaoteote would give to Ohio State football

It’s not confirmed that he has joined the Ohio State football roster yet, but here’s what the former five-star linebacker would be giving the Buckeyes.

The Ohio State football team is sorely lacking experience in the linebacker room. They lost their entire starting linebacker corps after this past season. They don’t have anyone who has started or really played significant snaps, and that’s the biggest question mark on the defense.

If the Buckeyes were able to get transfer linebacker Palaie Gaoteote, that would change things. We wrote about why we think he’s a Buckeye earlier, but there still is no official confirmation from either him or the University itself. It’s still a guessing game at this point.

Regardless, adding Gaoteote would be big for the Buckeyes. He would immediately give them some experience. He played in 17 games over the last three seasons at USC and would have one more year of eligibility at Ohio State. He gives them versatility as well.

Gaoteote has 105 career tackles, 7.5 tackles for loss, and 2 sacks. His sacks came his freshman season, so he’s not exactly someone that gets after the quarterback. What he does do is cover well from the linebacker spot and can help in the running game as well.

My guess is that Gaoteote would be able to start right away if he is in fact joining the Ohio State football program. That would leave just two, and perhaps one depending on what defense the Buckeyes play, starting spots that would be up for grabs.

We should know very soon whether or not Gaoteote is for sure enrolled in classes. I checked Carmen because I still have access to it and was able to look his name up. He’s in there. I would have to say that he will be suiting up for the Scarlet and Gray based on that.

We’ll see how he fits into the Ohio State defense as this season unfolds.