Since Ryan Day took over as head coach of the Ohio State football program, he has made it a point to only use the Transfer Portal as a tool to add to the roster, not to make over the roster. He brings guys in who can add some help at positions of need. He has made it clear that it is not a substitute for high school recruiting.
Day has been relatively successful with his evaluations when it comes to bringing talent over from the portal. He has had very few misses, although one might be a miss this year. Still, the players he is able to bring in help the Ohio State Buckeyes win games and win titles.
Late on Wednesday night, the NCAA made the announcement that the rules for the Transfer Portal are officially changing. There is no longer going to be two transfer portal windows. The spring portal window is now gone. Now, the Buckeyes are going to have to shift their strategy.
The Ohio State football team will have to adopt a new strategy for the Transfer Portal
Right now, the proposed window is January 4-11, which would be bad news for the Buckeyes. They fully expect to be playing football that late into the season, so that window would make it harder for them to land the best talent right out of the portal. That means they will have to shift their strategy.
If that does end up being the window, Day will have to have some of his assistants handle that portion of the college football calendar while he continues to game plan for whatever team they will be facing in a College Football Playoff game. It's certainly less than ideal for him to have to do.
Last season, the Buckeyes had several players declare for the transfer portal while they were still on their path to winning a national championship. That looks like it will continue with these new rules. Ohio State didn't handle it great, but now they have some experience with what this will look like moving forward.
Day will examine the new rules during this bye week to figure out what the best course of action is for the end of the year. Once he determines that, the Buckeyes will have a plan of action that they will use for years to come. Day will eventually learn to navigate the portal.